[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H424-H431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor tonight to once 
again highlight several questionable activities by Republicans during 
and after the Medicare prescription drug legislation passed the House 
of Representatives last year.
  Seniors have already begun to voice their opposition to the new 
prescription drug bill, as well they should. Seniors know that the 
Republican bill forces seniors to get their prescription drug benefits 
outside of Medicare. They have already calculated the supposed 
prescription drug benefit they would be getting under the law and 
realize that it is minuscule.
  Just to cite some examples, consider that seniors with a thousand 
dollars in annual prescription drug costs would pay $857 out of their 
own pockets; or that those seniors with prescription drug costs of 
$5,000 a year would be forced to pay $3,920. Now I ask: What kind of 
benefit is that? If seniors are not getting the money, where is the 
$500 billion that it is now estimated that this prescription drug so-
called benefit would cost the Federal Government? Where is the money 
going if it is not coming to the senior citizens?
  There is no doubt in my mind that both Republicans here in the House 
and in the Bush administration are concerned that seniors are not 
buying this plan. Many of our seniors have contacted us and told us 
that this is a terrible plan and it is not going to help seniors, and 
it is a boondoggle for the special interests, HMOs, and the 
pharmaceutical companies. I think what is happening is the Republican 
leadership here in the House and President Bush and his administration 
realize that the public thinks, rightly so, that this Republican 
prescription drug plan for seniors is a farce. So last week we got wind 
of the fact that the Bush administration's Department of Health and 
Human Services was going to spend $22 million to rebut criticism, and 
this was stated by the administration, to ``rebut criticism of the new 
Medicare law through an advertising campaign on television and through 
the mail.''
  Some may have already seen these ads. I think it is outrageous. I 
have to say that here we are talking about how bad this bill is as part 
of our free speech that we all exercise, and seniors are saying it is a 
bad bill, and the Bush administration has the gall to now spend $22 
million in taxpayer money to try in their own terms, and I quote, to 
``rebut criticism of the new Medicare law.''

                              {time}  2045

  I think the American public should be concerned that the President is 
spending $22 million of the taxpayers' money, money that could be used 
to actually help seniors with their prescription drug bills, than 
trying to rebut legitimate criticism of the Republican and the Bush 
administration Medicare prescription drug plan.
  President Bush should be concerned that seniors are not buying his 
prescription drug bill, but maybe, instead of spending taxpayers' money 
to try to rebut legitimate criticism, he should be talking about how he 
could change the bill. Or, alternatively, if the President wants to use 
his own campaign dollars, he has amassed about $150 million in campaign 
contributions over the last couple of years, a lot of which has come 
from the pharmaceutical and the insurance industry, if he feels that he 
needs to rebut the criticism, then let him spend money out of his own 
campaign war chest from those same people that he helped in creating 
this terrible legislation. Do not use the taxpayers' money to do it.
  The Republicans are saying, and this is what I have heard, they claim 
they are just trying to inform seniors about the new prescription drug 
plan with this taxpayer-paid ad campaign. One of the ways that you know 
that that is not the case is that the Department of Health and Human 
Services decided to use the same media firm that is working on 
advertising for President Bush's reelection campaign. We know there are 
a lot of advertising agencies out there, but why would the Department 
of Health and Human Services just happen to choose National Media, 
Inc.,

[[Page H425]]

which is the same media firm that is working for the President's 
reelection campaign?
  It is not a coincidence. Who knows what benefit or collusion there is 
in the fact that the taxpayers' money is being used for an ad campaign 
to rebut the Democrats' and others' criticism and at the same time it 
is the same agency that the President's reelection campaign has hired. 
But it is clear from this collusion, if you will, this is not a 
coincidence. The sole purpose of these taxpayer ads is not to inform 
seniors about the new prescription drug law but instead to try and 
convince them that the law is not as bad as they think. Both the 
television ad and the two-page flyer that they are sending out are 
oversimplified and distorted and I think they are clearly political 
propaganda that should not be paid for with taxpayers' funds.
  Let me just give my colleagues an example, because I have some of the 
ads now and I can just show them how political they are and why they 
should not be paid for by the taxpayers. Let me give my colleagues one 
example of how the Department of Health and Human Services' distortion 
of the Medicare prescription drug law is played out in these ads.
  In one of the ads an announcer states, and I quote, it's the same 
Medicare you've always counted on, plus more benefits like prescription 
drug coverage. That is the end of the quote. Any viewer of this ad is 
naturally going to assume that the prescription drug benefits would be 
available through Medicare.
  The ad goes on to claim, and I quote, it's the same Medicare you've 
always counted on, plus more benefits like prescription drug coverage. 
The fact is the supposed prescription drug benefit is not included in 
Medicare. Instead, seniors have to go outside of Medicare, either to an 
HMO or a PPO, to get their prescription drug coverage. So the ad is 
totally inaccurate. It is suggesting to the viewer that you can get 
your prescription drug coverage through traditional Medicare when in 
fact you cannot. You have to join an HMO or something like it, like a 
doctors' group called a PPO in order to get the benefit. So it is not 
like traditional Medicare and you are just adding the benefit.
  I think it is simply wrong and it is unacceptable for the Bush 
administration to use the taxpayers' money for such a misleading and 
useless ad and flyer, $22 million that could be used to help seniors 
with a prescription drug benefit rather than thrown away on this 
ridiculous ad campaign.
  Last week, Mr. Speaker, I joined several of my colleagues in sending 
a letter to the Comptroller of the General Accounting Office asking the 
agency to investigate this misuse of government funds with the ads. 
Because, frankly, I think it is illegal. Last Friday, the General 
Accounting Office agreed to investigate the legality of the ads and the 
flyers.
  I do not think there is any question it is illegal. The law is clear 
that Federal law bars the use of public funds for political or 
propaganda purposes. There is no way anybody can interpret this and say 
it is not political or propaganda purposes.
  It is my hope that the GAO will see these ads for what they are and 
conclude that the taxpayers' dollars should not be used by the Bush 
administration in an attempt to sell its lousy prescription drug bill.
  I want to talk about the next step. This is what the administration 
is doing, using the taxpayers' money to try to distort what this 
Medicare prescription drug bill, so-called, is all about. But it is not 
just the Republicans at the Department of Health and Human Services 
that I am concerned about.

  Because today's Roll Call newspaper, the Capitol Hill newspaper, 
includes an article about how the House Republican Conference, that is 
the Republican Members of Congress, is now coming up with a script 
described as similar in fashion to the one created by the Department of 
Health and Human Services that I just talked about that its Republican 
members could use for public service announcements. These public 
service announcements again would be taped at taxpayers' expense 
through Congress' recording studio.
  So now we have got the Bush administration through its agency 
spending taxpayers' money, the Members of Congress, if they do these 
public service announcements, taping them at taxpayers' expense through 
Congress' recording studio.
  It is going to be interesting to see how House Republicans try to 
spin this. They have been trying to spin how this legislation was good. 
Now they are trying to spin how this taxpayer ad campaign is a good 
thing.
  So far, none of this has worked. Because, basically, the American 
people understand that it is all spin and there is no substance to any 
of it, and I would suggest that now the ads, I think, in my opinion are 
illegal.
  I am just hoping that at some point the House Republicans would wake 
up and realize the reason seniors do not like their prescription drug 
law is not because the House Republicans have not explained it properly 
but just because seniors see through all the rhetoric and already know 
that this Republican prescription drug bill provides a paltry benefit 
as I explained before. Why in the world would a senior want to have to 
spend all this money out of pocket to get a very paltry benefit?
  The bottom line is that when this bill goes into effect in a couple 
of years, and it does not go into effect until 2006, which is another 
reason why you would ask why all this money is being spent on ads to 
promote it when it does not even go into effect for a couple of more 
years, but the bottom line is that when it does go into effect most 
seniors will not even take it. They should not, because it is not 
giving them any kind of benefit.
  Mr. Speaker, this prescription drug legislation, in my opinion, is a 
perfect example of how the Republican majority has turned the people's 
House of Representatives over to the special interests and to the 
wealthy elite; and I think seniors should not be and have not been 
fooled into believing that this legislation was written for their 
benefit. The Republicans did not write this bill to help the seniors. 
They wrote it to benefit the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical 
companies.
  In fact, many of my colleagues, and I have said for months that this 
so-called prescription drug bill was being written not here on Capitol 
Hill but instead downtown in the offices of PhRMA, which is the trade 
organization for the pharmaceutical industry, and also written by the 
insurance companies. Here in the Republican-controlled House of 
Representatives, the only true voices that matter as far as Republicans 
are concerned are those of the special interests and the wealthy elite.
  I have talked about the ad campaign, but I see that some of my 
colleagues are here. I would like to yield to the gentleman from 
Vermont (Mr. Sanders), who has been outspoken on the need for a 
prescription drug benefit and the need for us to be able to import low-
cost prescription drugs from Canada. He has been outstanding on this 
issue.
  Mr. SANDERS. I want to thank my friend from New Jersey for his 
consistent leadership on an issue that is so important to tens and tens 
of millions of Americans.
  I think the first point to be made and that many American seniors are 
wondering about is, hey, what is in this benefit for me? Is it good? We 
hear from the President, we hear from some of our Republican friends 
that this bill is going to go a long way to solve the problems of 
seniors paying very, very high prices for their prescription drugs and 
a whole lot of money out of their own pockets. So let us get the facts 
straight. Let us put it right out there on the table.
  If you spend $500 a year out of pocket, what are you going to pay out 
of the President's new plan? You are going to pay $733. What? For $500 
worth of prescription drugs? Yes, that is the case. Because there is a 
premium of $35, a deductible of $250 and coinsurance, copayment of 25 
percent from the first $251 to $2,250. If you spend $1,000 out of 
pocket, you are going to pay 85 percent out of your own pocket. If you 
spend $3,000 a year, you pay 64 percent. If you spend $4,000 a year, 
you pay 73 percent. Does that sound like a very good deal?
  What is even worse, as the gentleman from New Jersey has indicated, 
because there is no cost containment in this bill, the Consumers Union 
of America has estimated that one year after the implementation of this 
legislation,

[[Page H426]]

seniors will be paying more out of their own pockets for prescription 
drugs than they pay today. Why? Because when there is no cost 
containment, prescription drug costs will go up 15 percent, 15 percent, 
15 percent. Three years from now, prescription drug costs will be 40 or 
50 percent higher, nullifying the minimum benefits in this bill.
  This is a bad, bad bill providing minimal benefits to our seniors.
  I was reminded in the process of how this bill became a law, and the 
gentleman from New Jersey will remember how when we were kids we went 
to school and they say this is how a bill becomes a law. I am afraid 
they are going to have to rewrite those textbooks because let me tell 
the listeners and my friends how a bill becomes a law in the United 
States Congress in 2004.
  First of all, of course, you have to contribute a whole lot of money 
to get your voice heard. On June 19, 2002, 2 days after Republicans 
unveiled their new Medicare bill, surprise, surprise, the 
pharmaceutical industry staged a fund-raiser for President Bush and the 
Republican Party in which it raised a record-breaking $30 million in 
one night. It goes on from there.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, if the gentleman from 
Vermont recalls, and the gentleman from New Jersey was there as I was 
that night they raised that money, we were actually in committee 
working on the prescription drug bill and we had to recess early that 
night so that they could go off to their fund-raiser and collect the 
millions of dollars that they raised.
  President Bush highlighted the event. The event was cochaired, as I 
recall, by the CEO of a British drug company, which also, obviously, 
has operations in the United States. But the gentleman from Louisiana 
(Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the committee who is soon to go work for 
the drug industry, shamelessly recessed the hearing about 5 or 6 
o'clock. So they go out and change into their evening clothes, go off, 
do the fund-raiser, come back, and then we started the next morning.
  Mr. SANDERS. It is important for the American people to see how a 
bill becomes a law.
  Number one, if you have an interest and you want a bill to become a 
law, stage a massive fund-raising event and contribute to the President 
of the United States. That is step number one. I know it is not in the 
local textbooks, but that is really how it goes on.
  Step number two, ignore the will of the Nation's elected 
representatives. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that on 
July 25, 2003, the House of Representatives, and frankly in a 
bipartisan way, had the courage to stand up to the pharmaceutical 
industry and the Republican leadership and they passed strong 
reimportation legislation which says that pharmacists, prescription 
drug distributors and Americans should be able to purchase safe, 
affordable, FDA-approved medicine in any one of 26 industrialized 
countries, thereby lowering the cost of prescription drugs in the 
United States by 25 to 50 percent.
  But if you are serious about making a bill into a law, you have got 
to ignore that. You ignore what the House did, you ignore the votes 
that are in the Senate, and you say good-bye to that. But the gentleman 
from New Jersey just told us what you do. You suddenly put into the 
bill in conference committee language that says, amazingly, that the 
United States Government and Medicare cannot negotiate with the 
pharmaceutical industry to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
  That is step number two in how a bill becomes a law in the year 2004 
in the Republican Congress.
  Step number three, and this is a beauty. I do not think the textbooks 
in high schools or elementary schools have this one. Ram your bill 
through even if you do not have the votes.
  What does that mean? How do you do that?
  On November 22, 2003, at 5:53 a.m., the House Republicans passed 
their Medicare bill. By all accounts, it was an historic night in the 
Capitol. Under House rules, as we all know, votes are supposed to last 
for 17 minutes; and then the Speaker gavels the rollcall to an end. 
Amazingly enough, that particular vote lasted a record-breaking 3 
hours. Three hours. That is part of the process of how a bill becomes a 
law: Ignore the rules of the House.
  Mr. PALLONE. The other thing, just to add to that, is that when the 
17 minutes are up, because I was here, the votes were against the bill. 
In other words, there were 218 votes, which is a majority, against the 
bill. So the bill lost at that time. It is just amazing.
  Mr. SANDERS. That is the third key point. Ignore the rules of the 
House of Representatives; and if you are losing, do not accept that. 
Just keep going and 3 hours later twist enough arms so that at 5:53 in 
the morning, I believe it was, you will get the votes to pass it.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, I do not want to 
argue with the gentleman from Vermont, but he has got to be fair. The 
fact is that the Republicans worked all summer to learn how to do this. 
It was not that they just figured out how to ram a bill through in the 
middle of the night in November to do the drug bill. If the gentleman 
will recall, in the middle of the night on a Thursday night in April, 
they rammed through by one vote a cut in veterans' benefits.

                              {time}  2100

  Then in the middle of the night on a Thursday night in May, they 
eviscerated Head Start by one vote. Then in the middle of the night on 
a Thursday night in June, they cut education by, I believe, three 
votes. Then in the middle of the night on a Thursday in June or July, 
they did it again. Then even in the middle of the night in September, 
they passed $87 billion for Iraq. So they are getting pretty good at 
this. They may not follow the civics textbooks quite as well as we are 
hoping they would, but they have learned how to do things in the middle 
of the night when the press is gone, when the public has gone to sleep, 
when nobody much is in the press gallery, and then it really does not 
get very much attention in the papers. I hesitate to interrupt the 
gentleman, but I will go back to my friend from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, just a few more steps on how a bill becomes 
law. Step number four is to mislead members of one's own party, of 
one's own party who have reservations about this bill. There were many 
honest Republican conservatives who had from their own perspective 
doubts about the bill. They did not want to spend the kind of money 
that is going to have to be spent. So what the President says and what 
the Republican leadership says is this bill over a 10-year period is 
going to cost $395 billion; they can vote for it, $395 billion. 
Amazingly enough, 2 months later, 2 months after the President signed 
the bill into law, he submitted a budget to Congress that put the 
estimate of that legislation at $530 billion. Only $135 billion off 
over a 10-year period. It is likely many of us believe, in fact, that 
that bill will cost a lot more because it does not have any cost 
containment.
  Step number five is to stick to one's story regardless of the facts. 
In the State of the Union address, the President stated that ``for a 
monthly premium of about $35, most seniors can expect to see their drug 
bills cut roughly in half.'' Unfortunately, that claim is simply 
untrue. The reality is that most seniors will see their drug bills cut 
by only about one third and maybe even less.
  Step number six is to turn one's work on the bill to one's own 
personal gain. And I think the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
made this point. Here we have the chairman of the House Committee on 
Energy and Commerce that wrote this legislation, took the lead in 
shaping this bill. According to The Washington Post, that gentleman, 
the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), is expected to take a job 
from PhRMA, which is the lobby from the pharmaceutical industry, and 
leave the House of Representatives before his term expires. Another key 
player, Thomas Scully, the immediate former head of the Center for 
Medicare and Medicaid Services and the White House point person on the 
Medicaid bill, recently left his post to work for a law firm that 
represents pharmaceutical and other health care interests; and we were 
told that this bill was really written for the senior citizens of the 
United States, not for the pharmaceutical industry.

[[Page H427]]

  The last and final point in terms of how a bill becomes a law is to 
use taxpayers' money to ``educate'' the citizens if they are not buying 
their story. Recently, President Bush has launched a $23 million 
advertising blitz all at taxpayer expense to tout the Medicare bill. A 
media firm working for his reelection campaign will get a cut of the 
pie for buying the air time for the government touting the new Medicare 
law.
  The bottom line here is, I think it is time to rewrite the textbooks 
in this country about how a bill becomes a law. What we have seen in 
the last many months, a year, is a shameful process. It is a process of 
big money buying clout and buying legislation, and it is something that 
we have got to change immediately.
  I yield back to my friend.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. And 
I know he is being a little sarcastic in talking about how a bill 
becomes law, but the fact of the matter is we can use his example on so 
many occasions in what has been happening here in the last few years 
under this Republican majority. And what happened with this Medicare 
prescription drug bill is a great example, as the gentleman has said; 
but there are many others, and it is just like the whole place has just 
turned over on the Republican side to the special interests, the 
corporate interests, the wealthy elite. And I never thought I would see 
the day when that would happen, but that is where we are.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. And I am so glad that my distinguished colleagues are here; 
and to my good friend from Vermont, I think we should label this 
Special Order ``incredulous,'' still seeking answers, and I think the 
history books will be rewritten as to how this Congress gets 
legislation passed, and maybe we should even write a new book on ethics 
and integrity and whether or not this House can retain its name because 
when I came here, and I know that when I go into my district I always 
cite that this is the people's House, to be run and organized and 
directed and moved by the people of the United States of America.

  To the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), my good friend, let 
me, first of all, thank him for organizing this Special Order. And let 
me just make a brief mention of the Hispanic Caucus that was on the 
floor earlier, and they were discussing of course the concerns they had 
with the Bush administration's impact on the Hispanic community; and I 
might cite just for a brief moment his plan on immigration. Here is 
another plan that seemed to not come from the origins of what is best 
for the people, and of course the gentleman is aware that that is a 
plan that is called guest worker or temporary worker so that millions 
of those who are, in fact, hard-working and tax-paying individuals who 
may have come here undocumented will have a program that in 3 years 
will throw them into oblivion, and they will have no pathway and no 
access to legalization. That is another program that is going to be 
costly, have no direction; and I would hope that we will all work 
together as a caucus to be able to promote a plan that works.
  I think at the same time when we look at our ethnic communities, both 
African Americans and Hispanics who are aging in this Nation, we know 
that the prescription drug benefit that this President has offered to 
us is a sinking hole, and I might cite for my colleagues that we are 
already in a $551 billion deficit. And, Mr. Speaker, we now have a 
prescription drug benefit that is really taking the lights and we are 
turning it on because, as my colleagues have said, this bill was voted 
on in the dark of night. I think every television set in America was 
off because we were here at about 3 or 4 in the morning, and I think 
what my good friend from Vermont did not say is that the vote began at 
2 a.m. and actually we stayed on the floor for a good 3\1/2\ hours 
while Members were being cajoled and accosted and I do not know what 
else was occurring to change their votes.
  I think it is important to reiterate that at the time we cast our 
votes, we had defeated a guaranteed prescription drug benefit that was 
not itself. In fact, it was not that. We defeated a plan that would 
deny the United States' 44 million Medicare recipients the ability to 
harness their power and to be able to negotiate the cheapest price. We 
defeated that. Instead, we passed a $534 billion bill that is growing 
and that will not be in place until 2006.
  So I want to join my colleagues just to point out to the American 
public, and particularly to our seniors, that we are not going to 
forget them and we are not going to leave them now. We are going to 
continue to raise these issues on the floor of the House over and over 
again until this bill falls on its own weight and falls on the spear 
where it needs to go, and then we can finally get a guaranteed 
prescription drug benefit with life, with sanity, and that recognizes 
the needs of seniors all over this country.
  Might I also add insult to injury, my grandmother used to use that 
phrase frequently, to note that in addition to the $534 billion cost 
and the gift to our good friends in the pharmaceutical industry, and 
might I say that when the pharmaceutical companies do good things, I am 
interested in working with them. When they work on a cure or 
vaccination for HIV/AIDS, when they begin to coordinate with African 
nations in being able to help the blight and devastation and the horror 
of HIV/AIDS, I want to collaborate and work with them. But when we have 
a bill that has a direct benefit and gift to them which says they 
cannot negotiate a cheaper price on behalf of the people of the United 
States of America, then I believe it is time to stand up and be counted 
with seniors rather than to be counted with corporate interests.
  But in addition to that, might I cite, and again I said this Special 
Order is all about just being absolutely incredulous about what is 
going on, and that is to find out that $9.5 million from Health and 
Human Services will be taken out and utilized by the White House for a 
television ad campaign to rebut criticism of the new Medicare law. In 
addition, $3.1 million will be used for newspaper, radio, and Internet 
ads in, and I compliment them, both English and Spanish in order to 
again talk about this ill-fated legislation. Insult to injury. $534 
billion and growing and no one will be served because there is not a 
real guaranteed Medicare prescription drug benefit. HMOs will be 
getting the bulk of the money, the same HMOs that will close up shop 
when they find it is not profitable to be in areas like Houston, Texas, 
that lost six of them about 6 years ago or rural areas of America. And 
then we add insult to injury, as I say, one thing after another; and we 
are going to spend close to 12, $14 million in order to explain a bad 
bill.
  I just say to my colleagues I could not miss the opportunity to join 
them in just citing for the American public to hold their horses, do 
not give up hope. We may have missed it for a moment, but we will not 
fail for long because once this hocus-pocus, smoke and mirrors is 
finally unveiled to the American public, and some people have said we 
cannot do anything about it, we cannot get it repealed, I believe it is 
going to fall on its own weight. And we will have to go back to the 
drawing board and be able to find a way expeditiously, not 6 years, 10 
years, to be able to solve this problem on behalf of the American 
people and as well the growing number of those who will be needing 
those benefits and who deserve these benefits who served us well.
  We talk about the Greatest Generation. I close simply by saying that 
we have been blessed by the fact that so many are being able to age in 
this country, and I am gratified for it. Medicare of 1965 allowed that. 
And I will not stand by silently while we destroy a vision and a plan 
that would add to the quality of life of seniors in this Nation. And 
with that, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman because she 
has been down here so many times talking about this issue which she has 
mentioned and which I find incredible. We are talking about over $500 
billion now for this program. Where is the money going? It is not going 
to the seniors. It is going to the special interests. It is going to 
the HMOs. It is going to the pharmaceutical companies. And now on top 
of that, the administration has the gall to spend, and she mentioned $9 
million, and I think that is just for the TV ads. The total is

[[Page H428]]

22 million if we add all the printed material and everything else they 
are sending out to promote a bad bill. It is just incredible. All 
taxpayer funded. But I appreciate her being here.
  I yield now to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), who I have to say 
is not only the ranking member on our Health Subcommittee, but he has 
repeatedly pointed out not only the faults of this legislation but also 
how the special interests wrote the bill, and now the administration is 
spending money to try to justify the bill, all for these special 
interests that really have no concern about the senior citizens. I 
yield to the gentleman.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Brown) would yield, I think we should know this. The gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Brown) serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, 
and he is the ranking member of his subcommittee, and John Dingell is a 
ranking member of the full committee, and I saw the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) on the floor.
  Let me just thank the gentleman. I think most people do not know the 
battles, the internal committee battles, that occur around trying to 
fight for good legislation.

                              {time}  2115

  Before I leave the floor, I want our colleagues to know that the 
Democrats on the Committee on Energy and Commerce stayed late into the 
night. I think you all were marking up a bill at 12 midnight. It was 
some days, obviously, before we were destined for the floor, but I know 
there were long hours.
  As I understand the history of that committee markup, many, many 
amendments were offered to try to correct some of the poison pill 
aspects of that legislation; many, many amendments, including 
reimportation, including this issue dealing with the inability to 
negotiate.
  I do not think it should go unsaid the kind of work that was done on 
behalf of the American people. It is never seen. And we appreciate that 
you were trying to bring to this floor a credible alternative. If my 
memory serves me well, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) might 
correct me, I do not think we were allowed to debate on behalf of the 
American people a credible substitute or alternative, or at least given 
the decency and respect, not for us, but for all of those suffering, 
given the decency to present to our colleagues, who would have voted 
with us, an alternative to what is now a catastrophe. So I just wanted 
to thank you and express my appreciation.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I thank my friend from Texas and for her speaking 
out and leading on this and other issues.
  She is exactly right. If you remember this bill, a lot of us, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the gentlewoman from Illinois 
(Ms. Schakowsky), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), a lot of 
us on the committee said that we should include a prescription drug 
benefit inside Medicare. Seniors understand Medicare. They understand 
premiums, copays, deductibles. They are not asking for insurance 
company choice. They are not asking for a choice of slick insurance 
company brochures. They like Medicare the way it works, choice of 
physician, choice of hospital, and we hoped choice of prescription 
drug.
  That was never allowed to be debated on the House floor. It is either 
vote for the bill or vote against the bill.
  Several people have talked tonight about how all that happened, but I 
want to share a handful of numbers that I think really sort of sum this 
up.
  First of all, when President Bush spoke from the floor of this House 
of Representatives, not far from where the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Pallone) is now standing, during the State of the Union, he said 
that this new law, this new Medicare bill he signed in December, 
fulfilled a basic commitment to our seniors. It kept a promise, 
fulfilled a basic commitment to our seniors.
  This bill did fulfill some commitments, but, unfortunately, the 
commitments the President had were not to our seniors, and let me 
illustrate that for a moment.
  There are 100 Members of the United States Senate, there are 435 
Members of the House of Representatives. Many people in the country 
know that. There are 535 Federal elected officials on this side of the 
Capitol and the other side in the Senate. There are 675 prescription 
drug registered lobbyists, 675 lobbyists, more than one per Member.
  In many ways, that tells the story, especially when you couple the 
fact that there are 675 lobbyists with the fact that the drug industry 
last year gave $21.7 million to Republican campaigns, and when you also 
factor in that the word on the street is that President Bush will get 
$100 million from the drug industry this year for his reelection.
  So I do not know why the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) or any 
of us should have been surprised that this bill was written by the drug 
industry for the drug industry. At the same time, the insurance 
industry had its hand on this bill. They contributed almost $26 million 
to Republican candidates last year. They also get a big part of this 
bill.
  So when the President signed this bill in December, this 
prescription-drug-Medicare-privatization bill, the President then said 
the cost was $400 billion. It ended up being much more than that, which 
I think they knew then but did not tell us for another 7 weeks.
  But of the $400 billion, the Congressional Budget Office, a 
nonpartisan organization, said that of the $400 billion, $139 billion 
would go to additional profits for the drug industry. Now this is an 
industry that is already the most profitable industry in America. They 
had a 17 percent profit margin, according to Fortune. The rest of the 
Fortune 500 companies had a 3.1 percent margin. Theirs was 17 percent. 
It is pretty clear this is an industry that is doing pretty darn well 
anyway.
  But they are getting $139 billion more in profits under this $400 
billion bill. The insurance industry is getting a $14 billion direct 
subsidy from the government.
  So it is no surprise that this bill turned out the way it has. It was 
a bill of, by and for the drug industry and of, by and for the 
insurance industry. You do not need a scorecard to figure that out in 
this business in these days in this government.
  I have been in politics a long time, but I have never seen this place 
owned and operated by interest groups the way it is. If there is a 
choice, if George Bush has a choice between the public interest and 
corporate interests, it is corporate interests every time.
  The prescription drug bill is written by the drug and insurance 
industry; Social Security privatization is written by Wall Street; 
energy legislation is written by Enron and Dick Cheney's other cronies. 
Privatization in Iraq, a $7 billion private contract went to 
Halliburton, a company that still pays the Vice President, still pays 
the Vice President of the United States $3,000 a week; and we have 
given them $7 billion in non-bid contracts.
  I mean, this place has been for sale. Never in its history has it 
been for sale the way it is now. As I said, if there is a choice 
between corporate interests and the public interest, this crowd, Tom 
DeLay, Bill Thomas, Billy Tauzin, the leaders of the House, the leaders 
of the Senate and President Bush, they choose corporate interests every 
single time. And that is troubling to all of us who have tried to 
honorably serve in this business for many years.
  And just to sort of crown it off, and then I will yield back my time 
to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who has been terrific 
on explaining this issue and understanding this, and then to the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), now this bill, the payment 
to the insurance industry, the President signed the bill in December. 
March 1st, the first of billions of dollars of subsidies goes to the 
insurance industry. March 1, 2004, this year, March 1, the insurance 
industry begins to get checks worth billions of dollars from the 
Federal Government.
  But you know what? Seniors do not get this prescription drug benefit 
until 2006. So the insurance companies get their money 3 months after 
the President signed it; seniors do not get the drug benefit for some 
2\1/2\ years after the President signed it.
  What kind of morally bankrupt social policy, morally bankrupt 
Congress, can do that kind of thing to the people of this country?

[[Page H429]]

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the amazing thing is we 
started off this evening, and I am sure we are going to hear from our 
colleague from Illinois who brought this to our attention, about this 
multi-million dollar ad program that the Health and Human Services 
Department is putting on to try to justify this Medicare bill. You 
might say to yourself, well, if it does not come into effect for 
another 2 years, why do they even need to start a $22 million ad 
campaign 2 years earlier? The ad campaign I think is totally illegal.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I am sure it has nothing to do with the election.
  Mr. PALLONE. It is just amazing to think the ad campaign is not only 
to try to tell people that this bad bill is good, but they have to do 
it 2 years before it goes into effect? As the gentleman said, the only 
reason is they are concerned about what happens in November in the 
election.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. You know what else? They are concerned about what 
happens in the election. The President and Karl Rove, the political 
strategist in the White House understand this bill has not gotten a 
very good public reception; and the reason it has not is because the 
public is catching on that it is written by and for the drug industry 
and it is written by and for the insurance industry. The public also, 
the seniors especially in this country, are beginning to read the fine 
print of the bill, and they see there is hardly any money out of this 
$400 billion for their drug benefit. So much of it goes to drug and 
insurance interests that they just really get pennies on the dollar.
  Mr. PALLONE. And the spokesman for the President said, or for the 
department, which is the Bush administration, said the reason we are 
spending the $22 million on the ad campaign was ``to rebut criticism of 
the new Medicare law.''
  So they are specifically saying the reason they are doing the ad 
campaign is because they do not like the criticism of the law. How can 
you say that that is not an illegal expenditure of money, when you are 
not allowed to spend taxpayers' money for political or propaganda 
purposes? It is unbelievable.
  I want to say the gentlewoman from Illinois not only has been out 
front on this Medicare issue, but she was the first one to bring to our 
attention on the floor last week that this money was being spent. But 
as the time goes on, we realize it is even worse than we originally 
thought.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey 
for his leadership on this and for this evening to bring to the 
attention of our House of Representatives just how really bad this 
media campaign is and how cynical it really is.
  I heard the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) talking about the 
windfall that will come to the pharmaceutical industry because of the 
passage of this bill, something like $140 billion in additional 
windfall profits. But I do not know even in their wildest imaginations 
if they realized the taxpayers were also going to fund the media 
campaign to sell the plan that will bring them the $140 billion. So we 
are talking about a neat little $22 million ad campaign that is 
beginning.
  I am sure maybe you talked about some of these things earlier, but 
you were just talking, too, about the political nature that we feel is 
involved in this ad campaign, that the timing has much more to do with 
an election in November than it does with really educating and 
informing seniors about the reality of this legislation and what it is 
going to mean to them. Fortunately, the seniors are smarter than I 
think some people on the other side of the aisle may think.
  However, to add to the political connection, some of us wrote a 
letter to Dara Corrigan, the Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General 
of the Department of Health and Human Services, and in that letter we 
were requesting an investigation of this ad campaign. Let me bring it 
to your attention.

  The letter in part says, ``It has also come to our attention that a 
media firm currently working for the President's reelection campaign 
has been hired to purchase the $9.5 million worth of television ad time 
for this new commercial. National Media, Inc., stands to make a 
windfall from this campaign. This is the same company that has been 
repeatedly hired for ad campaigns primarily funded by the Republican 
Party and by the drug industry. National Media, Inc., has done ad 
campaigns for Citizens for Better Medicare, a drug industry front group 
that has spent tens of millions of dollars on ads attacking lawmakers 
interested in lowering the cost of prescription drugs.''
  Now, we just passed a new campaign finance reform law that actually 
makes certain kinds of interlocking consultants and ad producers, et 
cetera, actually illegal.
  I do not know if this is legal or not legal. We want the 
investigation to proceed forward, but it certainly smells bad when you 
have the Federal Government, with taxpayer dollars, taxpayer dollars, 
millions, hundreds of millions of Americans putting money into an ad 
campaign. I have seen it. I do not know if you have. It has been in the 
media market in the Chicago area. I saw it on television here in the 
D.C. area.
  That ad campaign is promoted by the very same people who are working 
for the President's reelection campaign. To me, that is a smoking gun.
  Mr. PALLONE. What I said earlier, and I strongly believe it when I 
say it is illegal, is because you cannot spend taxpayers' money on this 
kind of campaign for political or propaganda purposes. Now the fact 
that you point out this is the same media firm that is involved with 
the President's reelection, I think basically proves, or certainly 
shows dramatically, that it is political. In other words, this company 
is doing ads for the President's campaign, and now they are doing these 
ads for the department. They are getting paid now by taxpayers' money. 
So I think that kind of lends support to the idea that this is 
political.
  I will even go one step further, which maybe you will not, but I 
would like to know at some point, hopefully with your GAO investigation 
or some other means, we will find out whether they get maybe a little 
discount on the political side for getting the contract to do the 
taxpayer-funded campaign. Who knows where this all goes? But it smells. 
There is no question about that.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The worst part of this deception is that it is going 
after senior citizens who count on prescription drugs day in and day 
out to extend and enhance and perhaps save their lives, and it is 
telling them things like, the ad itself, where a senior says, ``So how 
is Medicare changing?'' And the answer, ``It is the same Medicare you 
have always counted on, plus more benefits, like prescription drug 
coverage.''
  If I am a senior and I am watching this, I am thinking, here it is, 
what I have been waiting for, a prescription drug benefit.
  The first thing they are going to find out is, no, forget it, there 
is going to be nothing for 2 years except for, and we will talk about 
that later, this card. So there is not going to be any Medicare 
prescription drug plan of any sort for a couple of years.
  Then when they really find out the details, some of them are going to 
find out, ``If I join this plan, I am going to spend more on my 
Medicare.'' Millions of seniors would spend more if they signed up.
  So when they say it is the same Medicare you always counted on, plus 
more benefits like prescription drug coverage, it is not true. It is 
simply not true.

                              {time}  2130

  The most generous thing we can say about it is that it is certainly 
not the full story and, for many seniors, simply not true.
  Then it says, ``Can I keep Medicare just how it is?'' And that is a 
question that seniors are asking. They love their Medicare, for good 
reason. They can count on it, they can take it to the hospital, they 
can make sure that they can go see their doctor. They know their 
Medicare, and they love it. ``Can I keep Medicare just how it is?'' 
they ask on the ad. They say, ``You can always keep your same Medicare 
coverage.'' The thing they do not say is how much you may have to pay 
for it.
  Mr. PALLONE. Or, alternatively, that they may not get a prescription 
drug benefit at all if they keep the traditional fee-for-service plan.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Exactly. So, yes, you can keep your Medicare, but you

[[Page H430]]

may not get the same benefits; your premium may go sky high because the 
HMOs are skimming off the healthiest and the wealthiest. And, yes, you 
can have your Medicare, but it is going to cost so much more. Again, at 
the most generous, it is an incomplete answer and, really and truly, a 
deceptive answer. Seniors have to watch for that.
  And then, ``Will I save on my medicines?'' And the announcer says, 
``You can save with your Medicare discount drug cards this June and 
save more with new prescription drug coverage in 2006.'' Do my 
colleagues know what? Many seniors already have a prescription drug 
card. Actually, they may have a few prescription drug cards. But under 
this new plan, they are only going to be allowed one Medicare discount 
card, which may not even provide all the medicines that they need.
  The ad is misleading because seniors are led to believe that all of 
their medicines are going to be covered. It means that seniors will 
have to pay in order to get the discount card. It is not free. The ad 
does not mention that drugs that may be covered when you get the 
discount card could be dropped, leaving you with no savings, or you may 
end up in the middle of the year needing another medication you did not 
know about that is not on the card.
  This is a bad deal, and this ad is telling seniors, in a glowing ad, 
it is a nice ad, is it not? I mean, it is pretty. It is pretty. I mean, 
it is so wrong. The ad is so wrong. But the fact that the seniors are 
actually paying for this ad that gives a false picture of their 
Medicare, which they love and they want to know the truth about, is 
nothing short of, I do not know if technically so but, in my mind, 
criminal.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Brown), but of course what the gentlewoman is talking about are 
the TV ads, but we understand that this is going to be followed up in 
millions of dollars of print material, brochures that are going to be 
going out that are basically doing the same thing. So this is just the 
beginning; the TV ad is just the beginning of what they are going to do 
to try to distort what this is all about.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, this is a 
full media branding operation. I am sure all of the Madison Avenue guys 
are in there figuring out, how many impressions does it take? Who reads 
their mail? How many people watch television? Oh, yes, it is a very 
slick ad in time for the election.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, one of the producers of the ads did 
the 2000 George Bush ads, and it was found out after the election that 
they did this subliminal message on one of those 2000 ads when they 
were talking about Al Gore in the George Bush campaign where they put 
the word R-A-T-S, ``rats,'' on the screen very quickly, so the human 
mind does not know that it sees it, but it actually was on the screen 
and it sticks in their mind without their knowing it. That is sort of 
the subliminal advertising that has been studied. The guy that did that 
is being paid by taxpayers and by seniors with Medicare money to do 
these ads.
  That is incredible, considering, as the gentleman from New Jersey 
said at the beginning that the Bush campaign already has $100 million 
in the bank. The drug companies are going to put $100 million more in 
his campaign. They are going to make $140 billion or more extra profits 
from this bill. So it is pretty clear that they could have afforded it 
themselves, but they let taxpayers pick it up. It is pretty amazing.
  Mr. Speaker, when I hear my friends talk about this, just about 
Medicare, I know people at home think that everybody is for Medicare, 
they would not want to mess up Medicare. But one of the differences of 
the two parties is that my friends on the other side of the aisle, and 
I think they are intellectually honest about it, but they really have 
never believed in Medicare. If we just briefly look at the history, 39 
years ago when Medicare passed, only 10 Republicans voted for it. 
Gerald Ford voted against it, Bob Dole voted against it, Donald 
Rumsfeld voted against it, Strom Thurman voted against it in the 
Senate. They did not much like it then.

  Then, in 1995 when the Republicans finally had the majority, the 
first thing Newt Gingrich did was try to cut Medicare by $270 billion 
and then predicted that it would wither on the vine. So this is a group 
that has never really bought into the whole point of traditional fee-
for-service Medicare that serves 40 million people in this country. 
They want private insurance to do it. They have always wanted private 
insurance to do this. That is why they allowed the private insurance 
companies to write the bill.
  But if this bill stays in effect, in 20 years Medicare will not be 
recognizable. It will be just like it was before 1965 when half the 
people in this country who are over 65 had no health insurance. Today, 
darn near everybody does, because we have this universal, beloved 
program called Medicare. The only people who really do not like 
Medicare are a few doctors that think they should be able to charge 
more and a bunch of Republican Members of Congress. Basically, the 
country likes this program. We should not be privatizing it. We should 
not be turning it over to insurance companies, because the government 
has run Medicare so well.
  Mr. Speaker, the administrative costs for Medicare: 2 percent. The 
administrative costs for private insurance: 15 percent. The fact is, 
Medicare is efficient, it is humane, it excludes nobody, it is 
available for everybody once you turn 65. It is a program that works. 
And Republicans, in the name of prescription drug coverage, have set 
this program to its early death if it continues.
  That is why we have to repeal this law. We have to stop it from 
ultimately taking effect. We have to turn the drug companies and the 
insurance companies, throw them out of the temple and come back and 
write this bill the way it ought to be written.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what really bothers me, 
as the gentleman said, since the seniors are so supportive of Medicare 
and think it is such a good program, when they see these brochures and 
these other ads going out that are going to have the official Medicare, 
or government, seal on them, they are going to naturally think, the 
government is not going to lie to us. The Medicare administration, 
department is not going to tell us something that is not true.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) mentioned the subliminal aspect. 
There is a certain sort of seal of authority that comes from the fact 
that these brochures and these ads and everything are actually from the 
government; and that really bothers me too, to think that people are 
going to think that this is an official government enterprise, 
educating them about the program when, in effect, it is just distorted, 
what they are being told.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to reinforce the point 
that the Republicans never really liked Medicare, but that continues to 
this day in spades. When we heard one of the leaders on the other side 
of the aisle, one of the chief negotiators on this bill, or authors of 
this bill say, To those who say this will end Medicare as we know it, I 
say, I certainly hope so.
  So seniors have to understand who is driving the legislation and 
where their disrespect for Medicare really lies.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I give credit to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
Means, who wrote this bill, at least he was honest about it. He said, I 
sure hope it ends Medicare as we know it. Another prominent Republican 
on the Committee on Rules called Medicare a Soviet-style program. I 
wish the media would report those kinds of statements, because that is 
one of the few times that they are going to be honest. But in the 
Presidential race this year and in races for Congress, we are going to 
see people look into the camera and speak into the microphone and say, 
We love Medicare; we are preserving Medicare and protecting Medicare. 
We know they are not. They are not. They know they are not. That is why 
they are sending out, at taxpayers' expense, all of these phoney 
brochures, as the gentleman said, with the seal of government approval 
to engage in political campaigns with public dollars. That is what they 
are going to do all year. Seniors need to be warned when they get those 
mailings that they simply are not true, that they are not telling the 
truth about Medicare, that they want to undercut Medicare. They are 
deceptive. They are wrong. They are probably illegal. They should stop.

[[Page H431]]

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I think it is so 
important for us to keep talking about this is because if the Bush 
administration gets away with this, where is it going to end? In other 
words, now they are spending $9 million on TV, $22 million total. If 
they think they can get away with it, they will double it. They will 
triple it. It just sets a terrible precedent. So that is why I think it 
is so important. I know the gentlewoman from Illinois started talking 
about it last week. We have to keep at it with the GAO, with the 
Inspector General to try to stop this, because if not, where is it 
going to end? It will just continue on over the next 6 months.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentleman 
from New Jersey who I know has some drug companies in his State, and he 
has shown more courage in speaking out for the right things. The drug 
companies do good things, there is no doubt about it; but they also 
abuse the public interests in so many ways. The gentleman from New 
Jersey has always been there fighting for his constituents, even when 
many wealthy interests in New Jersey do not quite like what he does. 
All of us appreciate that.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I appreciate what 
the gentleman said. The bottom line is we know that the drug companies 
do a lot of good things; but when they are not doing good things, we 
have to tell them that it is not good. Otherwise there is no end to it. 
I think this ad campaign is a perfect example of abuse on the part of 
the administration.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, at the end 
of the day, I really put my faith in the senior citizens of this 
country. I have the pleasure of being the executive director of the 
Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens working on issues like this; 
and if I know the seniors, they will sit down, put pencil to paper, and 
figure out exactly what this bill does or does not do for them. They 
will know that this campaign is a sham and a scam; and if the other 
side of the aisle thinks that this is going to carry the day during the 
elections, I think the senior citizens of this country are going to 
prove them wrong.

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