[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H252-H253]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         MEDICARE BILL LEAVES AMERICA'S ELDERLY OUT IN THE COLD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, yesterday felt like Groundhog Day.

[[Page H253]]

America woke up, got more bad fiscal news from the Bush administration, 
and predicted years and years of growing Federal budget deficits.
  We learned this weekend that the $400 billion Bush Medicare plan 
passed and signed in December was, in fact, going to cost $539 billion. 
Americans were surprised to learn that most of that first extra $139 
billion, most of the first $100 billion will go straight into the 
pockets of the drug companies, the group that helped to write the 
prescription drug bill in the Oval Office. The other $39 billion is 
going to shore up the taxpayer-financed payoffs to encourage insurance 
company HMOs to provide Medicare coverage.
  Well, that bad news was not much of a surprise for those of us who 
work regularly with the White House. President Bush, in the State of 
the Union, said the new Medicare measure kept a basic commitment to our 
seniors. The President in that bill may have fulfilled a commitment or 
two, but it was not to the Nation's elderly. Here are some of the key 
details the President forgot to tell us about: The estimated cost of 
the Medicare prescription drug bill over 10 years was $400 billion; the 
estimated increase in drug industry profits from the Medicare drug bill 
are $139 billion. The additional government payments to the insurance 
industry to participate in Medicare were originally tagged at $14 
billion. There are 100 Members of the United States Senate, 435 Members 
of the United States House of Representatives. There are 675 Washington 
lobbyists working for the drug industry, and we see the influence they 
have on President Bush and my Republican friends on the other side of 
the aisle when we look at that bill.
  The drug industry gave to Republicans in 2002, $21.7 million in 
political contributions. The average elderly American's drug cost is 
$2,400. The portion of that average American's drug cost covered by the 
new Medicare drug benefit is only 45 percent. The average profit margin 
of Fortune 500 firms in 2002 was 3 percent. The average profit margin 
of the top 10 drug companies before the Medicare bill was 17 percent. 
The increase in elderly Americans' Social Security checks last year, 
2.6 percent. The average price increase in the 50 prescription drugs 
elderly Americans used most in 2002 was 6 percent.
  Retirees with health insurance before Medicare was signed into law, 
50 percent of retirees in this country had health insurance before 
Medicare was signed into law. Today about 97 percent of retirees in the 
United States have health insurance under Medicare. Medicare 
administrative costs are only 2 percent; average administrative costs 
for insurance company HMOs are 15 percent. The compensation package, 
including stock options for one chief executive officer of a Medicare 
HMO in 2002 was $529 million, even though in the last 4 years 2.5 
million of America's seniors were dropped from HMO coverage. The 
insurance industry gave $25.9 million to House and Senate Republicans 
supporting President Bush last year.
  Most telling, on March 1 the bill that President Bush signed, only 3 
months after he signed it. The insurance companies, insurance HMOs in 
this country, will receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the 
U.S. Government come March 1. But the bill that President Bush signed 
to take care of America's elderly and their prescription drug coverage 
does not go into effect for 2 years. The insurance companies get their 
money 3 months after President Bush signed the bill, America's elderly 
do not get their drug coverage until 25 months after President Bush 
signed the bill.
  It is clear that the President talked about his basic commitment to 
America's seniors when in fact the basic commitment of the Medicare 
prescription drug bill was to America's drug industry and America's 
insurance industry. Those are the groups that will do well under the 
prescription drug bill. America's elderly, by President Bush, will 
again be left out in the cold.

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