[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 76 (Thursday, June 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H3754]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CONFUSING MEDICARE CARD GAME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this week America's seniors and 
disabled Americans can use the new prescription drug discount card 
created by last year's Republican Medicare law. This card program has 
not exactly been met with a resounding ``yes.'' Nation-wide fewer than 
500,000 seniors out of 40 million actively chose to enroll in the card.
  A little surprise when seniors in Ohio and throughout the country 
have found it confusing, have found it overwhelming, have found it way, 
way too bureaucratic, and have found it unreliable.
  Under traditional Medicare, all of your benefits are available 
through one Medicare card that looks like this. But under the new 
program, seniors have to choose from a whole deck of cards. This card 
may be a discount for Fosamax. This card may be a discount for Zoloft. 
This card may be a discount for Vioxx. This card may be a discount for 
Lipitor. This card might be a 12 percent discount. This card might be a 
16 percent discount. This card might be a 19 percent discount.
  But even with that confusion, Mr. Speaker, it gets worse because one 
card might cover your blood pressure medicine but not your heart 
medicine; the discounts published in the brochure you read, the 12 
percent, the 14 percent, the 16 percent, the discounts you might read 
could be out of date by the time you get to the drug store.
  In other words, under this Rube Goldberg kind of plan, you pick one 
of these, in Ohio, 53 cards, you pick one of these cards, you pay $30, 
you are stuck with that card the whole year. Yet, the card maker, the 
card seller can change the discount, can change the drugs that are 
covered anytime during that 52 weeks. Mr. Speaker, that is not 
Medicare. This is Medicare. It is simple. It is reliable. It is 
universal.
  The new program is having such problems that even one of its most 
widely accepted provisions is having trouble signing people up. The new 
law provides annual subsidies of up to $600, a good idea, on drug 
purchases for some, unfortunately too limited, number of low-income 
seniors.

                              {time}  1515

  But even that provision did not reach its target audience. Secretary 
Tommy Thompson says he is somewhat concerned that low-income seniors 
are not signing up. A lot of us are concerned in this House that they 
are not signing up.
  The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Stark), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and I have introduced a bill 
that would automatically enroll all seniors in the new low-income 
subsidies program.
  Like Medicare itself, our proposal is simple; it is universal and 
reliable. Unfortunately, because it violates the Republican 
privatization way of doing things, they do not want to do it. So 
instead of actually fixing the problem by saying all seniors who are 
eligible get the $600 automatically, the Bush administration's going to 
spend another $4 million to advertise to try to encourage people to 
sign up. They have already spent up to $80 million to tell seniors that 
this program is a good idea overall. Now they want to spend another $4 
million doing something that we ought to do to reach out to those 
seniors that need the drug benefit.
  Earlier last year when the HHS auditors said the Republican bill 
would cost $134 billion more than the White House said, the White House 
suppressed the estimate and gagged the auditor. When the initial 
reaction from seniors was less than enthusiastic, the Bush 
administration announced plans to spend, as I said earlier, $80 million 
of our taxpayer dollars to educate seniors on why this bill is not 
really this bad after all. When news coverage of the program was not 
favorable enough, the Bush administration was undaunted. They just 
rolled out their own news stories, at taxpayers' expense, complete with 
fake anchor, phony interviewer, bogus reporter. It is not about 
substance; it is about image.
  I think we can show that we can do better. House Republican 
leadership should pass the Dingell bill this week. It would begin to 
enroll those people who are eligible for the $600 drug benefit, those 
lower-income seniors. We could pass it and get it over to the other 
body in plenty of time to have it on President Bush's desk by next 
week. I would love that to happen.
  The choice, Mr. Speaker, again should be do we want one Medicare card 
that can give good drug discounts using the 40 million beneficiaries to 
negotiate a 40, 50, 60 percent discount for all seniors on this one 
card, or do we want to issue this privatized kind of Medicare with 53 
cards, with 53 different plans, sold by private insurance, too 
confusing, too bureaucratic, and, frankly, a benefit that is barely 
worth it?

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