[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 8, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H6273-H6274]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFIT
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year President Bush
addressed a Michigan audience laying out his plans to restructure
Medicare. He said, ``If it's good enough for Members of Congress, it's
good enough for seniors in this Nation.'' What he meant was that
American seniors who enroll in Medicare should have health insurance
choices like those available to Members of Congress under the health
insurance plan called the Federal employees health benefits plan.
President Bush was not the only one to say so. Republican leaders in
the House made the same point. All of us have heard colleagues here say
that. That message, that seniors should have the same kind of health
insurance choices available to Members of Congress, was an important
selling point for the Republican Medicare prescription drug bill.
That message is absolutely right. The problem is that the Republican
bill is absolutely the opposite. The Republican Medicare bill, H.R. 1,
does not even come close to giving seniors the kind of coverage that
Members of Congress have provided for themselves. The Congressional
Research Service says the FEHBP plan which Members of Congress are in
offers a drug benefit worth $2,700, but the same CRS, Congressional
Research Service, nonpartisan arm of the Congress said the Republican
Medicare bill is worth only about half of that. The Republican Medicare
bill does not offer American seniors health care choices just like
Members of Congress even though the President said it did. It does not
even come close.
Even a basic comparison shows how the Republican bill comes up
woefully short. The Republican bill tells seniors they have to pay a
$250 deductible. Members of Congress do not pay a deductible. The
Republican bill requires seniors with drug costs over $2,000 to
continue paying monthly premiums even though they do not get any
coverage until they spend an additional $2,900 out of pocket. Members
of Congress do not make premium payments and get nothing in return. The
Republican Medicare bill does not offer American seniors health care
choices just like Members of Congress. It does not even come close.
The Washington Post said the drug benefit proposed by the Republicans
for seniors provides merely a fraction of the drug coverage that
Members of Congress receive. The chairman of the health policy
department at Emory University said that drug benefits are much better
in the congressional Federal employees plan. Still do not believe the
Republican bill offers a bad deal for American seniors? You have to
look no farther than H.R. 2631 on today's suspension calendar. H.R.
2631 says that private insurance plans under
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the Federal employees health benefit plan must agree to provide drug
coverage for Federal retirees actuarially equivalent to the drug
coverage they provide to current Federal employees. In other words,
what that means is that when Members of Congress and other Federal
employees retire, they will not be forced to go into H.R. 1, into the
Republican Medicare bill. It is good for Members of Congress, it is
good for Federal employees, because the Republican Medicare drug
benefit would be a step down for them. Remember what the President
said: If it is good enough for Members of Congress, it is good enough
for seniors in this Nation. That is what he says about the Republican
bill.
It would be a big step down to go into the Republican privatized drug
benefit plan for the 13 million American private sector retirees who
get drug coverage through their employers' health insurance. The
Congressional Budget Office said that more than one-third of all
seniors who are in private retirement plans will see their plans
dropped by their employer. They will be forced out of the private
coverage they have today, forced out of that plan and put into the
inferior Republican Medicare prescription drug plan.
H.R. 2631 says Members of Congress should not have to live under the
same system that the Republican Medicare plan foists on the American
public. Should we pass H.R. 2631 today? Absolutely, because 8.5 million
Federal employees should not have to live with the Republican Medicare
bill's drug benefit. But given that the Republican Medicare bill's drug
benefit is so bad that Congress, after passing it 2 weeks ago, today is
exempting themselves, get that again, the Republican Medicare bill is
so bad from 2 weeks ago that passed here that today Congress is
exempting itself from that plan so that Members of Congress can
continue to enjoy good health coverage, not the inferior plan that
President Bush and Republicans are foisting on Congress.
We should pass H.R. 2631 today and we should throw H.R. 1 in the
shredder and get to work on a real prescription drug benefit for
American seniors. And the President when he says, ``If it's good enough
for Congress, it's good enough for seniors in this Nation,'' the
President should mean what he says.
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