[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Page 29102]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 29102]]

           SENIOR PRESCRIPTION INSURANCE COVERAGE EQUITY ACT

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been coming to the floor for a 
number of days now in an effort to try to get a focus back on this 
prescription drug issue which seems to involve a lot of finger pointing 
and a lot of partisan bickering. As part of that effort, I have been 
urging seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills. Just 
as this poster says, the senior can send in a copy of the prescription 
drug bill, and write to each of us in the Senate here in Washington, 
DC.
  I have been actually coming to the floor and reading some of these 
bills for a number of weeks. Just in the last couple of days, I heard 
from a woman in Portland--she is 84; she has diabetes and a heart 
condition. She has only Social Security to support herself. She is 
spending over a third of that Social Security check every month on 
prescription drugs. She is now at a point where it is hard to pay the 
taxes on her home.
  I heard from another gentleman recently. He has a monthly Social 
Security check of $633. The cost of his drugs is $644 a month. He is 
spending more for his prescription drugs each month than he is actually 
getting in income. So every month this senior is having to choose 
between food and fuel and fuel and health care. So as a result of this 
effort to get from seniors copies of their prescription drug bills, we 
are hearing about the kind of suffering that seniors are enduring 
around this country.
  Senator Olympia Snowe and I have a bipartisan prescription drug bill. 
It would cover all senior citizens on an ability-to-pay basis. More 
than 50 Senators of both political parties are now on record as 
supporting a funding plan for this legislation. I know other Senators 
have approaches they would like to try. What is important is that we 
get a bipartisan focus on this issue. Every public opinion poll shows 
seniors and families across this country are having difficulty making 
ends meet when it comes to the high cost of essential health care 
services.
  Our approach is marketplace oriented. There are not price controls. 
It is not one size fits all. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is called 
SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It is 
designed to deal with the double whammy our seniors are facing on their 
prescriptions. First, Medicare does not cover the drugs they need and, 
second, when a senior citizen walks into a drug store, in effect that 
senior is subsidizing the big buyers, the health maintenance 
organizations, and other health plans that are able to get discounts.
  So seniors have this double whammy now in front of them when it comes 
to their prescriptions. I hope more will, as these posters indicate, 
send us copies of their prescription drug bills. I think on the basis 
of these bills that we are getting from seniors across the country--
each of us in the Senate here in Washington, DC--we can bring about 
bipartisan support to actually respond to the needs of the seniors.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may we have order in the Senate? The Senator 
is addressing the Senate. May we have order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. The Senator from 
Oregon has the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we still do not have order. May we have 
order in the Senate? You may have to rap that gavel to be heard.
  Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President. The Senator from West Virginia 
has been a great ally of the Nation's older people, and I very much 
appreciate his thoughtfulness. I believe my time is almost up.
  I intend to keep coming to the floor of the Senate to read from these 
bills that we are getting from the Nation's senior citizens. We have 54 
Members of the Senate already on record as having voted for a specific 
plan to fund a prescription drug benefit for older people. We can do 
this in a bipartisan way. We have the chairman of the Aging Committee, 
Senator Grassley, who has led our efforts on the committee on so many 
issues.
  I am going to keep coming back to the floor and read from these 
bills. Again and again, we are hearing from seniors who cannot afford 
important drugs such as their diabetes medicines.
  I will wrap up by saying, when I am asked the question whether our 
Nation can afford prescription drug coverage, my response is we cannot 
afford not to cover prescriptions.
  A lot of these drugs help seniors stay healthy, keep their blood 
pressure down, or help to reduce cholesterol. I have cited previously 
an anticoagulant drug. It costs senior citizens about $1,000 a year. 
With those kinds of medicines, we can help prevent strokes that involve 
expenses of more than $100,000.
  I am going to keep coming back to this floor to focus on the needs of 
seniors. We ought to do this in a bipartisan way. That is what is 
behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation. A lot of our colleagues have other 
ideas for addressing this issue.
  As this poster says, I hope seniors will continue to send copies of 
their prescription drug bills to us in the Senate, Washington, DC.
  I will keep coming to this floor until we can get the bipartisan 
action we need that provides real relief for the Nation's older people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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