[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 31, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1760-H1761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG AND MODERNIZATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) is recognized for 5 
minutes.

[[Page H1761]]

  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk 
about the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act. The goal of 
this legislation is to create a Medicare program that can provide for 
our seniors the quality health care in the future that Medicare has 
been able to provide in the past.
  Without the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act we 
passed and the President signed, the quality of the health care 
Medicare could provide would not keep pace with modern medical science, 
period. This bill was not and is not primarily about prescription 
drugs, though I believe we were morally and medically obliged to make 
prescription drugs a part of Medicare for all seniors.
  The modernization of Medicare was more significantly about two facts. 
With seniors living longer, chronic illness has become a major fact of 
life for our seniors; and Medicare, through its old-fashioned 
structure, literally cannot pay for the preventive programs that can 
help seniors with chronic illnesses maximize their health and well-
being and minimize their visits to the emergency room and the hospital.
  Preventive health integrated into Medicare for seniors with chronic 
illness can both reduce costs and improve the quality of care available 
to our seniors. This must be done for the quality of life of our 
seniors but also for the sheer survival of Medicare.
  One-third of our seniors have five or more chronic illnesses, and 
this third uses 80 percent of the resources. In every other sector of 
the population, we are seeing disease management programs increase the 
quality of care, increase the well-being of patients and reduce the 
costs of health care. We musts do no less for our seniors.
  We are morally, medically and fiscally bound to integrate disease 
management into Medicare, both into the plans that Medicare offers to 
our seniors and into the fee-for-service system that has long been 
historically the primary means for Medicare to deliver health care 
services to our seniors.
  Only the House bill offered disease management as a new program under 
Medicare; and through the conference committee we strengthened this 
program, we broadened it, and we actually gave to those who manage 
Medicare the right to demonstrate various disease management programs 
and then simply roll them out to benefit all seniors and all Medicare 
programs without coming back to Congress. We delay things. We make them 
difficult. This is a matter of life for our seniors. It is a matter of 
quality health care for our seniors.
  The Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act is just that. It 
is about prescription drugs and modernizing Medicare so that it will be 
prepared and capable of delivering cutting-edge, state-of-the-art 
health care to our seniors and particularly to those seniors with 
chronic illness.

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