[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7943-S7944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, today the Senate will be in a period of 
morning business until 10 a.m. At 10 o'clock, the Senate will resume 
consideration of S. 1, the prescription drug benefits bill.
  Yesterday afternoon, a number of Senators came to the floor to begin 
this historic debate. I hope many Members will participate and will 
continue to make, over the course of today, their opening statements on 
this important piece of legislation.
  I ask unanimous consent that the bill be open for debate only until 
the hour of 2:15 today, and further, that the time until 2:15 be 
equally divided between the two managers or their designees.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Today, the Senate will be in recess from 12:30 until 2:15 
for the weekly party lunches. Rollcall votes are possible during 
today's session, and we will notify all Members as these votes are 
scheduled over the course of the day.
  Madam President, we will be turning our attention to Medicare 
shortly, and we will be focused on this significant, important piece of 
legislation for the next several days. Indeed, we will stay on this 
bill until we vote on its passage. As I looked over the progress from 
last week, I saw a lot of encouraging examples of consensus building 
and working together on both sides of the aisle, of progress and of 
achievement in a bipartisan cooperative way. We made huge progress in 
the debate on energy and, indeed, were able to pull together a finite 
number of amendments.
  Over the course of the weekend and this week, the managers of that 
bill will be looking at those amendments to see how we can, in a very 
orderly way, come back and address energy and bring it to completion. 
We also, last week, completed our action on a number of important 
issues, one of which was the FAA reauthorization. We were able to do 
that in one day. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their 
cooperation in moving this important and much-needed bill to 
completion.
  We also passed the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act last week. In 
particular, I want to thank the distinguished majority whip, the 
Senator

[[Page S7944]]

from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, for bringing that bill both to our 
attention and shepherding it through the floor.
  Last week, we also passed the Women Business Centers Preservation 
Act, sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe, and we were able to complete a 
number of executive nominations. We have a whole range of other 
nominations pending, and we will work to clear these nominations on the 
Executive Calendar and to schedule rollcall votes as necessary.
  As we enter the Medicare debate and the amendment process, I am very 
hopeful it will follow the same pattern we showed last week in working 
together. We will see robust debate. The end product is something for 
which I think we will have strong bipartisan support. I think the 
amendment process will reflect a lot of the differing approaches on 
both sides of the aisle within each of the caucuses as we go forward 
with the shared goal of strengthening Medicare, improving Medicare and, 
at the same time, providing America's seniors with the benefit that we 
have been denied in the past because traditional Medicare simply hasn't 
kept up to the times, and that is prescription drug coverage.

  I look forward to 2 weeks from now when we will, on this floor, 
hopefully--I optimistically say this--pass a bill that America's 
seniors and future retirees will be able to look at and say, yes, that 
is health care security and that does include the benefits that are so 
important to health care delivery today, namely, prescription drugs.
  We have talked a lot about modernization of the Medicare Program over 
the last 45 years. We had a bipartisan commission that generated a plan 
that was bipartisan, which Senator Breaux and I put together based on 
the findings of the Medicare Commission. The Senate Finance Committee, 
over the last several years, has had 30 hearings, with 7 devoted just 
to this issue of prescription drug coverage. Earlier in the month, we 
held an additional committee meeting to focus specifically on the 
framework that has been put forth by the managers of the bill, Senator 
Grassley and Senator Baucus.
  That hearing constituted the third committee hearing on Medicare this 
year. Indeed, last Thursday night, the Finance Committee voted to send 
this historic legislation to the floor of the Senate with a bipartisan 
vote of 16 to 5. I thank Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus for 
getting us to that pivotal point. This Grassley-Baucus agreement 
provides a strong base, a strong framework upon which we can achieve 
that mutually shared goal of strengthening and improving Medicare with 
a meaningful prescription drug benefit added. There are so many others 
who should be recognized who participated in the debate, but it is 
almost futile to do it because so many have participated in this body 
and in the House of Representatives, indeed, with the administration 
and the bold leadership of President Bush. I think because of all of 
this activity and the foundation that we have of working on this for 
years and years, we do have an opportunity--and indeed I argue that it 
is an obligation--to bring this debate to a point in which we take 
action and actually pass a framework to give this appropriate 
strengthening of Medicare.
  Yesterday, Members did have the opportunity to deliver opening 
statements. As I mentioned, they will continue through this morning and 
likely into the early afternoon. Later today, if appropriate, we can go 
to amendments and tomorrow have a very active day on amendments.
  Again, I hope we will be able to turn to final passage of this bill 
before we adjourn for the Independence Day recess.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________