[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 64 (Monday, May 10, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5056-S5058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       MEDICARE AND THE UNINSURED

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, for many of us, this is ``cover the 
uninsured week,'' but, for the administration, a better title would be 
``ignore the uninsured week.'' Since the day it took office, this 
administration has ignored the worsening health care crisis that 
jeopardizes more and more families. Costs are out of control. The 
number of the uninsured is soaring. No family can be sure that the 
insurance that protects them today will be there for them tomorrow. And 
the Bush administration remains frozen in the ice of its own 
indifference.
  The number of people without insurance has grown by four million 
since President Bush took office--and he has done nothing. Health 
insurance premiums have skyrocketed by 43 percent--and he has done 
nothing. Prescription drug costs have exploded by 45 percent--and he 
has done nothing.
  Every day, employers shift more costs to employers or cancel coverage 
altogether. Every day more families are forced into bankruptcy because 
of high medical bills. And President Bush does nothing.
  Soaring health costs and declining insurance coverage harms the poor, 
but they are protected to some extent by Medicaid. It is the 
hardworking middle class who are victimized the most. More than 80 
percent of the uninsured are in working families. Fourteen million have 
incomes of more than $50,000 a year. Seven million have incomes of more 
than $75,000 a year. No family is more than one pink slip or one 
employer decision away from being uninsured.
  That is wrong. You and I know it is wrong. And the American people 
know it is wrong. But President Bush refuses to do anything about it.
  The President has read the polls showing that the American people are 
concerned about health care, so he pretends that he cares. As in so 
many areas, he talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. He has 
done nothing. The steps he has proposed don't even deserve to be called 
tokenism. They actually take us in the wrong direction. They would be 
laughable, except that the health care crisis is no laughing matter for 
millions of American families.
  The President touts new tax breaks for the healthy and wealthy--as if 
the wealthy haven't already benefitted far too much from this 
administration's policies. The administration calls for health savings 
accounts--but for millions of Americans who need health care the most, 
the result will be thousands of dollars in higher premiums, not 
savings.
  The administration claims to offer refundable tax credits to help the 
low-income uninsured buy insurance. But those credits are inadequate to 
buy real coverage. Far from helping the uninsured, they would actually 
cause millions more to lose the good employer coverage they now enjoy. 
They are

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such a low priority for the President that he didn't even provide money 
to fund them in his own budget.
  The administration is proposing association health plans to lower 
costs for small business. But these plans are nothing more than a 
giveaway to trade associations that support the President, and they 
will raise premiums for more than 20 million workers according to CBO.
  The administration proposes a Federal cap on medical malpractice 
awards, and calls it cost control. But the idea that you can cut health 
care costs by denying fair compensation to severely injured patients is 
a cruel hoax. Some premiums are $100,000.
  When it comes to affordable health care for the American people, this 
administration is all talk and no action. It is compassionate 
conservatism without the compassion. President Bush and the Republican 
Congress won't make the tough decisions to bring costs down. They won't 
stand up to the drug companies that profit enormously from the status 
quo. They won't put the need for health care for American families 
ahead of the greed of wealthy campaign contributors. It's time for a 
change.
  Our colleague Senator John Kerry is proposing a plan to give health 
care the top priority it deserves. He believes that secure, affordable 
health care for hard-working families is more important than tax breaks 
for millionaires and billionaires. His plan will provide health 
insurance coverage for 27 million people nearly two-thirds of the 
uninsured. He will cut costs for every family that pays an insurance 
premium.
  He will take on the drug companies, so that Americans can enjoy the 
same fair prices paid by Canadians and Europeans. He will give every 
American--every American--access to the same health care enjoyed by 
members of Congress at the same fair price they pay. He will be a 
health care President--and that is just what the doctor ordered for 
every family that needs and deserves quality, affordable health care.
  Every senior citizen now has health insurance through Medicare. But 
Medicare's guarantee of affordable health care remains unfulfilled, 
because Medicare does not cover the high cost of prescription drugs. 
Congress had a chance to provide a decent downpayment on prescription 
drug coverage last year, but President Bush and the Republican 
leadership hijacked that program.

  The Bush Medicare bill needs to be scrapped and replaced. It is a raw 
deal for senior citizens and a sweetheart deal for the insurance 
industry and the pharmaceutical industry. It is a triumph of right-wing 
ideology pretending to be positive reform. It is based on a flagrant 
deception reaching all the way to the top of the White House. The sorry 
story of this legislation is a prime example of the need for new and 
more effective leadership in the White House.
  The Republican Medicare bill lavishes Medicare money on subsidies to 
HMOs and other private insurance plans--$46 billion, according to the 
Medicare actuary. The goal is to undermine Medicare, make it no-
competitive, and force senior citizens to join HMOs.
  The administration's bill was designed to benefit drug companies and 
insurance companies, not senior citizens. It is not a serious solution 
to the high cost of prescription drugs. Because of high premiums and 
high deductibles, 6 million senior citizens will actually pay more in 
premiums for the drug program than they will receive in benefits. 
Another 6 million--the poorest of the poor on Medicaid--will actually 
be forced to pay more for the drugs they need. Three million more 
retirees will lose the good private retirement coverage they now have, 
and will be forced into the inadequate new program. That is 15 million 
senior citizens who will actually pay more for prescription drugs under 
this bill than they would pay if the bill had never been enacted.
  Let me repeat that. Fifteen million senior citizens will actually pay 
more for prescription drugs than if this bill had never been enacted.
  Even for those who do benefit from the bill, the benefits are meager. 
Once your spending for drugs reaches $2,250, you fall into a hole where 
you receive no benefits at all until you spend $2,800 of your own 
funds. If you spend $500 a year today, you will pay more in premiums 
than you get back in benefits. If you spend $1,000, you will still pay 
86 percent of the cost. If you spend $5,000, you will pay 78 percent of 
the costs. The bottom line is that in paying for the drugs you need, 
you will be better off on a bus to Canada than you will be under the 
Bush bill.
  A key reason the drug benefits are so inadequate under the Bush bill 
is that it fails to do anything to control the explosive growth in the 
cost of prescription drugs. Drug companies will reap at least $139 
billion in windfall profits over the next 8 years. According to the 
Congressional Budget Office, drug prices will actually rise faster, not 
more slowly, as a result of this bill.
  The Bush bill shouldn't be called the Medicare Prescription Drug 
Improvement Act. It should be called the ``Profits for Drug Companies 
Improvement Act.''
  The more senior citizens learn about the Medicare bill, the less they 
like it. The Bush administration has already squandered more than $20 
million of senior citizens' own Medicare money on thinly disguised 
political advertisements for the Bush reelection campaign. These 
misleading and dishonest advertisements are intended to persuade the 
elderly that this lemon of a bill is actually lemonade. But senior 
citizens aren't accepting those ads, because they don't trust them.
  Now, the Bush administration is trying yet another disinformation 
campaign. Our part of the Medicare bill is a provision to license 
private companies to use the Medicare seal of approval to peddle 
discount cards to senior citizens.
  The administration is attempting to hype these discount cards to try 
to rehabilitate their failed Medicare bill. But senior citizens 
understand that these Medicare discount cards are a phony and 
ineffective solution to high drug prices--and every day brings a new 
embarrassment. The $18 million of senior citizens' own money that the 
Bush administration is spending to promote this program isn't 
persuading anyone.
  The administration set up a Web site to help senior citizens choose 
the cards that offer the biggest discounts in its ridiculously 
complicated program. But it turns out that many of the prices posted on 
the Web site are just plain wrong. The card companies blame the Bush 
administration, the administration blames the card companies, and 
senior citizens are left holding the bag.
  Studies by Families USA and the House Government Reform Committee 
prove what most analysts had said. The cards offer little or no savings 
compared to discount programs already available to senior citizens. 
Senior citizens will still be paying 50 percent more than Canadians pay 
and 50 percent more than the Government negotiates for the Veteran's 
administration and other Federal programs.
  The Bush administration tried to rescue their program with yet 
another study claiming to show that the cards really were a good deal. 
They claimed that the earlier study had not made a fair comparison in 
prices. So they prepared a new table and claimed savings ranging from 4 
to 10 percent.
  But once again, the administration played fast and loose with the 
facts. The discount cards don't allow purchase of a 30-day supply of 
drugs. So the administration took the cost of a 90-day supply, divided 
it by 3 and compared the cost to a 30-day supply already available on 
the Internet. Once postage and handling costs for three orders are also 
included, one discount card offers essentially the same discount, one 
card is 22 percent more expensive, and two cards offer minimal savings 
of 4 percent and 6 percent, not counting the enrollment fee.
  Everyone understands that the real issue isn't small discounts from 
already inflated prices. The real issue is the Bush administration's 
unwillingness to take on the drug companies. It won't allow Americans 
to buy drugs at the much lower prices paid by foreigners. It refuses to 
allow the Government to use the purchasing power of 40 million Medicare 
beneficiaries to negotiate a fairer price.
  When the Bush administration first put out its flawed study, they 
inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. They included Canadian prices 
and the Federal Supply Schedule prices of the

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drugs. A few hours later, they released a ``corrected version'' that 
omitted the comparison, but the damage was obvious.
  Whether the issue is the real cost of their Medicare plan or the 
savings from their drug cards, the Bush administration has made 
deception a tactic and distortion a habit.
  The administration's hype won't fool senior citizens or the American 
people. It isn't fair for Americans to pay twice as much as foreigners 
pay for drugs made in America by American pharmaceutical companies. It 
is not right that the Bush administration is fighting to protect drug 
company profits instead of fighting for patients. It doesn't reflect 
American values that legislation designed to protect senior citizens 
should be turned into a bonanza for powerful Republican campaign 
contributors.
  It is wrong for this administration to continually distort the facts 
and deceive senior citizens. We need a president and a Congress who 
will stand up to the drug companies and insurance companies and stand 
up for senior citizens.

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