[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 15, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MEDICARE PART D

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Medicare part D. Now, with great fanfare in the dark of 
the night, this Congress passed this plan, a plan written by and for 
the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is the number 
one beneficiary. According to some academics, it should raise their 
profits by 28 percent over the next 5 years, not bad for the 
pharmaceutical industry.
  Some forget history. The first time this bill came up on the floor of 
the House, it was being hotly debated, and then suddenly at 5 o'clock 
the House had to adjourn. Why did the House have to adjourn? Because 
the Republicans were going downtown to have their huge annual 
fundraiser, and a number of the principal fund-raisers were from the 
pharmaceutical industry. They are very, very generous to those who 
benefit them.
  The pharmaceutical industry does really well. The insurance industry 
gets subsidies to offer these plans, even though they say that these 
are going to be great plans. They are getting subsidies to offer them. 
Still, seniors aren't lining up in great numbers for the plans because 
they are unbelievably complex plans.
  Now, there are a number of problems that have come to our attention 
recently. In fact, even the chairman of Walgreen's, no lefty Democratic 
institution there, said that the government needs to intervene because 
the multiplicity of plans is just so unbelievable that people cannot 
understand them. Even worse than that, these plans are the most 
restrictive insurance product in history for requiring prior approval 
and testing before drugs are approved.
  When the CEO of Coventry Health Care was contacted regarding the 39 
different forms with multiple procedures the physicians would have to 
access in order to give drugs with prior approval to seniors, he said 
that could not be true. He checked, he came back, and he said it was 
true. He said, for instance, there are things like Accutane which could 
cause birth defects.
  I know that we are pushing the boundaries of science, but I don't 
think too many 65-and-over American women eligible for Medicare have to 
worry about that. There are some other disorders for which Accutane can 
be a very helpful and legitimate treatment.
  What they are doing is, first off, you have to buy into a plan. They 
can change the benefits weekly. Even if you took that plan because it 
offers the drugs you need on a weekly basis, the insurance industry can 
change it. Then even if they keep those drugs available, they are going 
to require that your doctor and you jump through incredible hoops to 
get prior approval.
  Even seniors in nursing homes who have been on drugs for 10 and 15 
years with a very well-known and documented condition, their doctors 
are being required to order expensive tests to justify continuing 
prescriptions for those seniors; and in some cases prescriptions have 
been interrupted, jeopardizing the patients.
  This is a plan that wasn't set up to be convenient or easy for 
seniors to use to provide a meaningful benefit. It was set up first to 
benefit the pharmaceutical industry, then the insurance industry. The 
plausible excuse for that is to provide some coverage for seniors, 
coverage which, by the way, is going to cost taxpayers $800 billion.
  Because, guess what, the bill, as written by the pharmaceutical 
industry, and passed by the Republican Congress and signed by the 
President, says that the Federal Government is outlawed, outlawed, from 
negotiating lower drug prices for seniors. That is prohibited by 
Federal law, despite the fact that the VA does it, and recent studies 
show that the VA is acquiring drugs between 40 and 80 percent cheaper 
than are being offered under these plans to our seniors.
  The pharmaceutical industry said it would not be fair if the 
government negotiated lower drug prices for everybody on Medicare. It 
would not be fair to do that.
  Come on, the most profitable industry consistently in the world, and 
they say that would not be fair; the industry that is gouging profits 
out of Americans, while selling drugs for half or a third the price 
overseas, and then crying all the way to the bank, when seniors here 
have to pay three and four times as much for those particular drugs.
  What would be fair is to have the government negotiate lower drug 
prices for everybody eligible for Medicare. You can walk in. You do not 
have to have any insurance; you are going to get that big discount. 
Then the government could offer a simple plan, one plan, that would 
give benefits to cover that additional cost, and they could do that on 
a sliding scale basis.
  We could save, over the next 5 years, the taxpayers of the United 
States $600 billion and provide a more meaningful benefit to all our 
seniors than this plan is doing. But we will not do that here, because 
the seniors aren't big campaign contributors like the pharmaceutical 
and insurance industries. Hopefully, there will be a revolt among 
America's seniors, and they will demand we change this plan, do 
something meaningful and save the Treasury $600 billion.

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