[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 86 (Tuesday, June 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3864-H3865]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PROVIDING MODERN MEDICARE BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up on what my 
colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), was talking about, 
and that is this week we here in Congress are considering a 
prescription drug benefit. But we are doing much more than that; we are 
working on trying to fix Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we realize that when Medicare 
was created in 1965, it was created at that time to provide 
comprehensive health care for all seniors over the age of 65. That was 
the goal of Medicare. It is a good goal.
  But the problem we face today is in the year 2002 seniors on Medicare 
are getting 1965 health care. They are not getting the year 2002 health 
care, because in 1965, we did not have all these wonderful health care 
technologies. We did not have all these breakthrough prescription 
drugs. Then it was a take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning kind 
of society. So Medicare reimbursed people if they needed a procedure, 
if they needed an operation; and that is how Medicare works today.
  So what you have seen occur over time is as health care technologies

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have developed, as we have pioneered pharmaceutical developments and 
come up with all these breakthrough drugs to make our lives healthier 
and to make our lives longer, you have seen a big source of cost 
shifting occurring. So if you need surgery, in many cases today you can 
have a prescription drug that will help you avoid that surgery, except 
for the fact that Medicare does not pay for that.
  So here is what is happening today. Seniors are forced to pay for 
their own drugs, even though if we were to redesign Medicare today we 
would obviously have prescription drug coverage as a key component of 
Medicare. So while Medicare waits until you are sick and then pays for 
your surgery or your procedure, we could save the government a lot of 
money and make people much healthier if they had a drug benefit within 
Medicare to help manage their disease, manage their illness, and 
prevent chronic illnesses from occurring in the first place. That is 
what Congress is trying to do today.
  Mr. Speaker, now that we all agree, and I think you can safely say, I 
think, that Democrats and Republicans agree that we need to modernize 
Medicare, we need to improve it with a prescription drug benefit and 
make the system comprehensive again, like we tried to do in 1965, and 
make it comprehensive in such a way that Medicare continues to evolve 
with the times, so 10 years from now in the year 2012 we are not 
scratching our heads saying ``Gol-darn it, Medicare is only giving 
people 2002 medicine, and it is 2012 and we need to have the year 2012 
medicine.'' That is a very important point in this debate. We need to 
set up Medicare so it grows with the times; so it adds new benefits and 
evolves as health care technology evolves.
  Mr. Speaker, where we are in the difference of debate between the two 
aisles here today, between the two different approaches on the Democrat 
side of the aisle and the Republican side of the aisle, is this: on the 
Republican side of the aisle, we recognize that two-thirds of America's 
seniors already have some kind of drug coverage or another. About a 
quarter of the seniors in America today already have their drugs paid 
for by their former employers. It is a part of their retirement 
benefit. We want to make sure that we are not going to make someone pay 
for a benefit that they already have.
  We also want to make sure that taxpayers, that the government is not 
going to unnecessarily pay for a benefit that the private sector is 
already paying for.
  That is a different problem with the Democrat plan. Their plan is a 
universal government monopoly, one-size-fits-all plan. It is a take-it-
or-leave-it, one-plan plan, and what the consequence of that will be is 
it will displace all that private sector-provided health care benefits. 
All those private sector-provided drug plans will now be displaced and 
taken up by Medicare and the taxpayers.
  The way we look at it is this: if a former employer is paying for the 
drugs of their retirees, why should the government tell them, do not 
bother paying for your retiree's retirement benefit because the 
government and taxpayers are going to pick it up?
  What we want to do is this: we want to make sure that everybody on 
Medicare has access to a comprehensive drug coverage plan, but we do 
not want to force them into the government plan. We want seniors to 
have a choice of plans that can fit their need and their benefit. It 
should be voluntary. If you already have a comprehensive benefit, you 
do not have to take this plan; and you should be able to get a plan 
that fits your need.
  That is what we accomplish. We have catastrophic coverage for all 
seniors that kicks in at $3,800. We have co-insurance on the first 
$2,000 of drugs. The one advantage that the Republican plan has that 
the Democrats do not is that we achieve deep discounts in prices of all 
drugs for senior citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of our plan. I think it is a superior 
plan. I think it does more to extend the solvency of Medicare, so we 
can save this program for the baby boomers. The alternative plan on the 
other side of the aisle actually brings the insolvency of Medicare up 
earlier, it is irresponsible, it bankrupts Medicare and forces seniors 
into a one-size-fits-all government plan and displaces private sector 
involvement in Medicare.

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