[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 20, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6641-S6642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MEDICARE AND PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I have a few opening comments I wanted to 
briefly mention on an issue we are going to be talking about and 
debating on the floor during the last 2 weeks of next month; that is, 
Medicare and prescription drugs. At this point, let me make those 
comments, and then we will proceed with the schedule as planned.
  It was in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy said, when leading the 
fight to enact Medicare at that time:

       A proud and resourceful nation can no longer ask its people 
     to live in constant fear of a serious illness for which 
     adequate funds are not available.


[[Page S6642]]


  These are the words I want to stress.
  He said:

       We owe the right of dignity in sickness, as well as in 
     health.

  Protecting the health of our Nation's seniors was the right thing to 
do in the early 1960s, and it is the right thing for us to do now. Back 
in 1965, Medicare was designed for the way medicine was practiced at 
that point in time, and that was to treat acute or episodic illnesses 
that would bring people to the hospitals. It was not designed at that 
time, nor could it be designed at that time, to keep up with the 
dazzling innovations, the creativity, and the dynamic discoveries that 
were being made almost on a daily basis. These great advances have and 
will continue to transform medicine. We have a structure with Medicare 
that simply is not flexible enough or adaptable enough to assimilate or 
capture those great discoveries that are being made. That leads us to 
unacceptable gaps in coverage. One of those gaps has become apparent to 
us all, whether we are seniors or individuals with disabilities, or 
those of us in the political arena listening very carefully to our 
constituents. That is the gap for prescription drugs.
  What seniors deserve is health care security. Unlike in the 1960s 
when it was designed--there haven't been that many changes, really, 
since the 1960s--today that health care security does involve good 
preventive care, access to affordable prescription drug protection from 
those unexpected catastrophic costs which can reach astronomical 
levels, and access to the modern technology that I mentioned before.
  Since it doesn't include all of those things, it has not given the 
security I and I believe all of us believe seniors deserve.
  If you look at certain technologies such as preventive tests for 
breast cancer and prostate cancer, it literally required an act of 
Congress before they could be covered by Medicare. We in Congress 
simply cannot respond, with all of the other responsibilities, to each 
and every innovation that comes through. We simply can't do it.
  More basic care, such as cholesterol screening in my own field of 
heart-lung cardiology--you all know the importance of cholesterol--is 
not covered today. In the end, it creates lapses in a very good system. 
Medicare is a very good system, but it is simply not a system that is 
up to date with the quality of care that we could give our seniors 
today.
  I would say that we do have an obligation--I would call it a moral 
obligation--to ensure that Medicare does provide the highest quality of 
care to our seniors that we are able to provide and which I believe we 
can provide.
  The Senate Finance Committee has been working for the past several 
months to develop such a plan. We are building on the work of a lot of 
past bipartisan efforts in this body: the Breaux-Frist plan, the House-
passed legislation, the Senate tripartisan plan of the last Congress, 
and the President's framework for reform.
  In early June, the Finance Committee will be addressing this matter 
under the leadership of Senator Grassley, working with Senator Baucus, 
and we will take this proposal to the floor, as amended through 
committee, sometime in those last 2 weeks of June.
  It is my hope and it is my intention to vote on final passage of such 
legislation before we adjourn for the July 4 Independence Day recess.
  Once passed, we will begin to provide that prescription drug coverage 
for seniors and improve that system for health care security for our 
seniors.
  I do think we need to address this issue in a bipartisan way. This is 
a big bill. It is a big expansion of Medicare. It is going to take 
people on both sides of the aisle to address this important goal of 
protecting the health of our seniors.
  I mention all this only because it is so big and so large that I 
encourage my colleagues to start studying and restudying the issue, 
even though we have a very busy week now, and then we have our recess 
during which we will be with our constituents back at home, and then we 
will come back to an energy bill, and then Medicare. I want people to 
start preparing for that right now because it is such a large challenge 
before us.
  Our Nation's seniors are depending on us to do the right thing for 
them. With the appropriate planning, with the appropriate discussions, 
again, in a bipartisan way, we will be able to deliver on that promise.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Would the Chair announce morning business. Has that been 
done?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. It has not.

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