[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 1, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3577-H3578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           PROBLEMS WITH MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DISCOUNT CARDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, today, the seniors of this country are 
told that they can take advantage of the so-called Medicare discount 
cards which are available to them. They are being told that these cards 
will offer them between 10 and 25 percent savings. But there are some 
things that the seniors need to know as they contemplate the potential 
use of these cards.
  First of all, it is the sponsoring company that offers the discounts 
or determines the size of the discounts, and that sponsoring company 
can change the level of discount available to the senior frequently. In 
fact, they can do that every 7 days, if they so choose.
  The senior also needs to know that these cards only cover some drugs 
and not others. So if a senior takes four or six or eight prescriptions 
and they choose a card, and they can only choose one card, they may 
have one or two of their medicines included and covered by that 
discount card and other medications may not be covered by that discount 
card, and the very medicines that are covered can be changed at the 
whim of the companies. In fact, those medicines can be changed every 7 
days.
  Seniors also need to know that once they choose a card and choose to 
enroll with that particular company, they are locked in for one full 
year. So although the companies can change the level of discount 
frequently and they can change the drugs that are included in their 
discounts frequently, the senior is locked in to a particular card for 
one full year.
  Why is that? Why is all of the advantage being given to the 
sponsoring companies, rather than to the individual senior citizen?
  I think it is important for the seniors of this country to know that 
this discount card offering falls far short of what could or should be 
done by this government to make drugs affordable to them.
  One of the things we could do would be to simply allow the 
reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada. There is probably not a 
senior in this country that is not aware of the fact that Canada sells 
drugs for just a fraction of what those drugs would cost the American 
senior citizen, and yet this government, this administration, this 
President, opposes the reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada.

                              {time}  2015

  That is one of the things that could be done, and could be done 
quickly and easily; and it would reduce the cost of medications that 
our seniors face.
  Well, another thing the administration could do but refuses to do is 
to allow our Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate 
discounts for our senior population. Mr. Speaker, our government 
negotiates discounts for our veterans; and we believe that as a result, 
those drugs are discounted somewhere between 40 and 60 percent, and 
this is something that is currently being done on behalf of our 
veterans. Why would this President and this administration refuse to 
support such negotiated discounts being made available to our senior 
citizens? It just simply does not make sense.
  Mr. Speaker, we need help, our seniors need help with the cost of 
prescription drugs, and what we need is a prescription benefit that is 
a part of traditional Medicare. Seniors like and trust Medicare. It is 
a program that works. It is easily understood. It is easily 
administered. In fact, the cost of administering Medicare is just 
fractional compared to the cost of administering private plans.
  So why do we not just offer a prescription drug benefit that is a 
part of traditional Medicare? But no, that is not what the President or 
this administration or the leadership in this Congress wants. In fact, 
we all know that

[[Page H3578]]

in this Chamber in the middle of the night, this leadership pushed 
through a drug plan wherein they called for the vote at 3 o'clock in 
the morning; and at the end of the voting period, the 15-minute voting 
period, the bill had lost and it had lost because it is a bad bill. We 
kept the vote open, and the press says they got the President out of 
bed at 4 o'clock in the morning so he could twist arms and make phone 
calls and, finally, after 3 hours, they got a couple of freshmen and 
they apparently pressured them to change their minds because they came 
walking down the aisle and, at about 5 minutes to 6 a.m., this bill 
passed. We are now living with the results. The senior citizens of this 
country know they have been taken advantage of.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to November when the seniors will have 
their opportunity to respond.

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