[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5904-H5905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WOMEN AND PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, like the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) 
said, this is deja vu all over again. Here we are, once again, 
discussing ways to help seniors afford the prescription drugs that they 
need and must have and, once again, the majority insists on a sham 
proposal that gives seniors nothing more than a false sense of 
security.
  I am here tonight with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) to 
remind everyone that as we debate proposals to add a prescription drug 
benefit to Medicare, the decisions we make

[[Page H5905]]

will overwhelmingly impact the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and 
aunts across this country. Women are living longer than ever, and they 
are living longer than men. That is good news. However, the poverty 
that many women experience during their final years is certainly not 
good news.
  There are several reasons women's golden years are not so golden. 
While most women have worked their entire lives, a good portion of this 
work was not in the paid workforce. You do not earn a pension for the 
time spent caring for children or elderly parents. When many of our 
mothers and grandmothers were in the workforce, they were denied equal 
pay for equal work, therefore earning less. Some worked only part-time, 
trying to balance the responsibilities of their jobs and their 
families. As a result, they have made less over their lifetimes, and 
now their monthly Social Security benefit is considerably smaller than 
their male counterparts.
  These women deserve financial stability and still, the Republican 
prescription drug proposal denies them the security that comes with 
knowing that they can afford to pay for their medical care. Not only 
will the majority's plan not help senior women, it will push Medicare 
beneficiaries into HMOs, creating more instability. I am not 
speculating; I have watched it happen in my district.
  Just a few years ago, the Health Plan of the Redwoods, a good, small 
HMO that served my constituents in Sonoma and Marin Counties, went 
bankrupt. After first limiting services and physician payments, they 
had to close their doors. This bankruptcy interrupted care for a number 
of my constituents, a great number of them senior women.
  We should not force Medicare beneficiaries to accept the same kind of 
instability in exchange for a prescription drug benefit. The Republican 
plan ignores the proverbial 800-pound elephant in the room: the 
astronomically high prices of prescription drugs.
  Take a minute and think about the reason our senior women cannot 
afford prescription drugs. It is because prescription drugs are too 
expensive. To me, it is good, old-fashioned, common sense that we 
should take steps that address the root of the problem and find ways to 
reduce these prices. But the majority apparently does not enjoy the 
same common sense that my democratic colleagues and I do.
  Their plan specifically forbids the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services from negotiating lower prescription drug prices. Can my 
colleagues imagine that? The Republican plan prohibits the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services from trying to make the cost of prescription 
drugs lower.

                              {time}  2045

  Private insurance companies then must on their own negotiate with far 
less bargaining power. The Veterans Administration has proven that 
negotiating can result in lower prices, but the Republicans have once 
again proven that they care more about the profits of the 
pharmaceutical companies than the bottom lines or about senior women.
  Many older women have little or no financial security. But there is 
one thing even more dangerous than that, and that is a false sense of 
security. Millions of women will read the newspapers; they will be 
delighted to learn that there is now a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit. But imagine their surprise, imagine the surprise of the 
typical elderly woman when she learns that her so-called benefit will 
require her to pay $4,000 of the first $5,000 in annual drug expenses. 
And that is on top of a monthly premium that is yet to be determined.
  Frankly, I find it shameful that the majority claims that they are 
delivering a drug benefit to seniors when in reality the plan will 
cover only a small portion of their expenses. And it will actually 
outlaw practical steps to reduce these expenses in the first place. I 
dare my Republican colleagues to tell their mothers what they are doing 
to Medicare.
  After a lifetime of hard work, both in and out of the home, our 
mothers and grandmothers deserve better than this fraudulent plan the 
republicans are pushing. We can do better and we must.

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