[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19936]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         SENIORS MUST HAVE MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, today, once again, 
America awoke to the story of another senior citizen that finds the 
difficult choices in their life because of the cost of prescription 
drugs.
  Winifred Skinner, 79 years old, of Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday told 
the Vice President how on her $800-a-month income, $250 will go to 
prescription drugs, which leaves her very little for her other costs of 
maintaining her household. Therefore, she spends 2 and 3 hours a day 
collecting aluminum cans to turn in to provide food for herself. She is 
reduced to walking the streets and the roads of Des Moines, Iowa, so 
that she can collect cans to provide food because of the high cost of 
prescription drugs. She has no prescription drug benefit.
  Madam Speaker, we have been trying now for almost 2 years to get the 
Republicans to agree to have a Medicare prescription drug benefit so 
people like Winifred Skinner will have a reliable benefit to help pay 
for the medicines that they need; not a plan that depends on whether or 
not their HMO is in business or out of business; not a plan that 
depends on whether or not an insurance company will write the benefit 
or not, but a guaranteed plan within the Medicare system so that 
seniors know that they can rely on it.
  The time has come so Winifred Skinner does not have to keep walking 
the roads.

                          ____________________