[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6192]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of partisan bickering that goes 
on in Washington these days. Unfortunately, our constituents are often 
caught in between us, between the Democrats and the Republicans. They 
are literally caught in the ropes, strangled by our inability, 
especially on health care.
  An issue as important as quality, affordable and accessible health 
care is not and should not be a political game played by the Democrats 
or the Republicans. It ought to be about what is best for the American 
people, the people who have placed their trust and confidence in us.
  Over these past 19 days, I have participated in more than 60 events 
in my district, as many of my colleagues did during the district work 
period. All across Arkansas' Fourth District, my constituents told me 
about the health care crisis they face each and every day in their 
lives.
  A health care issue about which I care deeply is providing a 
voluntary, but guaranteed prescription drug benefit as a part of 
Medicare. I believe it is time to modernize Medicare to include 
medicine. Medicare is the only health insurance plan in America that I 
know of that does not include medicine, yet it is the plan that nearly 
every single senior citizen in America relies on day in and day out to 
stay healthy and to get well.
  Mr. Speaker, I own a pharmacy in a small town in south Arkansas, and 
living in a small town and working with seniors there, I know firsthand 
how seniors end up in the hospital running up a $10,000 Medicare bill, 
or how diabetics eventually lose a leg or require perhaps as much as a 
half a million dollars in Medicare payments for kidney dialysis. All of 
these instances are real-life examples that I have seen in my hometown 
in the small pharmacy that I own back there that I used to work at. 
Every one of these could have been avoided if people had simply been 
able to afford their medicine or if they had been able to afford to 
take it properly.
  I did a town hall meeting this past week in Hot Springs, Arkansas, 
one of the more affluent counties and cities in my district. We had 
more than 100 seniors at that meeting that I conducted in conjunction 
with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. 
At that meeting, we said, raise your hand if you have medicine 
coverage. Less than 10 hands went up in that room.
  This is America, and I believe we can do better than that by our 
seniors, and that is why I will continue to fight to truly modernize 
Medicare to include medicine, just like we include doctors' visits and 
hospital visits. It should be voluntary, but guaranteed, and it should 
be a part of Medicare.
  That is why the first bill I introduced as a Member of the United 
States Congress was a bill that basically tells the politicians in 
Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security and Medicare 
Trust Funds. It is the Social Security and Medicare Off-Budget Lockbox 
Act of 2001, H.R. 560.
  Also, during the district work period, I visited a Christian 
charitable medical clinic in my district, again in Hot Springs, one of 
the more affluent cities and counties in my district. At that facility, 
they literally spend millions of dollars with over 500 volunteers 
equaling millions of dollars in providing care for those who fall 
through the cracks. They only see those who live below poverty. That is 
all they see, people who live below poverty and yet do not qualify for 
Medicaid or any of the other programs. By and large, we are talking 
about the working uninsured, people that are trying to do the right 
thing, people that are trying to stay off welfare, but they are working 
the jobs that have no benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, I relish the opportunity to fight against the unfair 
inequities that have created an enormous uninsured population and fight 
against the big drug companies who continue to price Americans out of 
the market. It is wrong for the big drug manufacturers to invent drugs 
in America, oftentimes with government-subsidized research. They are 
invented in America, they are made in America, and then they send them 
to Canada and Mexico and sell them for 10 cents on the dollar. That is 
wrong. That is why I am proud to be cosponsoring legislation that tells 
the big drug manufacturers that whatever the average price that they 
sell to other countries is, they have to provide that price to our 
seniors back in America, one of many first small steps that we must 
take to finally have a voluntary guaranteed Medicare prescription drug 
package for every single senior citizen in America.

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