[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 142 (Thursday, September 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6007-S6008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Social Security Program

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there was a time not that long ago when 
families had a similar challenge across America: what to do with mom 
and dad. At that time, there wasn't much to turn to. If you were 
fortunate, your parents, during the course of their lifetime, saved up 
enough money to take care of themselves.
  But in my family and many others, it was common to have that spare 
bedroom for grandma and grandpa because there was no place else to go. 
It was part of American family life. It caused some hardship. The kids 
had to double up in the bedrooms, and some of the activities in the 
family were limited. But you did it because you loved them and they 
needed help and they couldn't take care of themselves.
  In 1939, that started to change. A President named Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt thought, It is time for us to give some relief to these 
families, to give dignity to seniors in their retirement years. And he 
created a program called Social Security--now one of the most popular 
programs in the United States.
  You don't hear many candidates for President standing up and saying, 
``I am going to cut Social Security benefits,'' do you? It is worshiped 
and venerated and respected and followed by families across America. 
But the critics in the creation of Social Security called it socialism. 
Socialism: Too much government, leave us alone; let mom and dad live in 
that spare bedroom; don't give them a separate savings account they can 
accumulate during their lifetime. If they do it, fine. If they don't, 
fine too. Socialism.
  Fast forward to the 1960s. Now we have a new concern: How are we 
going to pay for the healthcare of seniors now that they are living 
longer because of Social Security? What are we going to do about it?
  There was a concern in Washington that the cost of medical care--
surgeries and treatment--was just too expensive for the average person. 
And so President Lyndon Baines Johnson created Medicare. Medicare was a 
health insurance program for senior citizens across America.
  When it started, it ushered in a dramatic change in healthcare in 
America. The construction of hospitals started expanding their pace 
across this country. Medicare made a big difference.
  What did they say about it in criticizing it? Socialism: Too much 
government trying to provide healthcare for senior citizens. Of course, 
Medicaid came on its heels, as well, to take care of low-income 
individuals facing the same challenge.

  ``Socialism''--we hear that time and again. This morning, the 
Republican Senate leader criticized efforts to lower pharmacy drug 
costs across America. He called it prescription drug socialism. Here we 
go again. Any effort to help the average family who is trying to get by 
and trying to make ends meet that involves the government is criticized 
as socialism. The argument was made by the Republican leader that this 
socialism, this lowering of prescription drug prices, is ultimately 
going to stifle research and competition. He failed to mention one or 
two things.
  First, he failed to mention that virtually every single prescription 
drug that is now making a difference across America started with 
government research. The National Institutes of Health--the premier 
medical research Agency in the world--did the basic research for 
virtually every single one of these drugs. As much as I admire the 
private sector--and I do--and as much as I wish the pharmaceutical 
industry well, the fact is, if they are honest about it, they are 
simply bargaining with the government that helped them get started to 
find profitable products.
  The second thing I want to note that the Republican leader did not 
mention this morning is that, for decades now, we have allowed the 
Veterans Health Administration to negotiate drug prices. In other 
words, what we are now doing in Medicare, we have been doing for 
veterans. Our theory was our veterans deserve the best, and we have got 
to be able to afford it as a government, and they have to be able to 
afford it as individuals. So we negotiated these drug prices. I didn't 
hear any screaming and hollering about helping our veterans, because it 
was the right thing to do.
  Doing that for veterans is virtually the same thing that is happening 
in other countries. Why are exactly the same drugs that are made in the 
United States sold in Canada for a fraction of the cost? Because the 
Canadian

[[Page S6008]]

Government negotiated--just like the Veterans Health Administration in 
the United States--for reasonable prices for Canadian citizens. Now we 
are doing the same thing. Finally, after decades of promise, it is 
happening. This notion that the top 10 drugs under Medicare are now 
going to be negotiated so that we can bring prices within reach of the 
government and individuals is simply an extension of what we have been 
doing at the VA for years. I have to tell you it makes a difference, a 
serious difference.
  Imagine that the Biden-Harris proposal not only allows for 
negotiating prices down to a reasonable level for Medicare, but it also 
says that you in Medicare are limited to a $2,000 annual expenditure 
for prescription drugs. And $2,000 is a lot of money. Don't get me 
wrong. For a lot of people, it is a hardship to come up with that kind 
of money, but it is within the reach for most Americans to pay that 
amount of money. We know that drugs, otherwise, are too darned 
expensive for them.
  Now, the critics of that, like the Senator from Kentucky, this 
morning, call it socialism. I call it the American approach to helping 
families--a realistic approach that says that pharmaceutical drugs 
should be affordable. If I understood the position of the Kentucky 
Senator this morning, he thinks it is a big mistake. I think it is a 
breakthrough. Finally, we are going to reach the day when we can 
negotiate prices for those not in Medicare who will be helped as well. 
So I wanted to start my remarks with that.