[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10577-10578]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a true 
prescription drug plan that would cover all the seniors in America. 
Under Medicare, a Democratic prescription drug benefit would be 
voluntary and universal. Every senior would have access, no matter 
where they live or what their income.

[[Page 10578]]

  Soaring prices for prescription drugs are putting medicine out of 
reach for millions of seniors. Many of them are being forced to choose 
between paying for prescription drugs or paying for food. No older 
American should be faced with that decision.
  The House Republican prescription drug plan is a sham proposal that 
provides no real guarantee at all. Let us do the math, Mr. Speaker. 
Republicans argue that they have a $2,500 gap in coverage. That gap is 
bad enough, but the reality is even worse. Here is the math that will 
compare apples to apples. Under the Republican drug plan, the 
beneficiary pays as follows: a $250 deductible, and then a $150 
coinsurance for the first $1,000 of drugs, and then a $500 coinsurance 
for the next $1,000 of drugs. Add that up and that is $900 out-of-
pocket spending for the first $2,000 worth of prescription drugs.
  But that is not the end of it. You then have to calculate how much 
additional money a beneficiary must spend out of pocket to get to the 
$4,500 out-of-pocket limit that the Republicans have. That is $3,600. 
The gap for which the beneficiary is 100 percent on the hook in the 
Republican Medicare bill is $3,600. After a beneficiary obtains $2,000 
worth of drugs, they get no more coverage from the Republican Medicare 
drug plan until they spend another $3,600 out of their own pocket. 
Therefore, before Medicare pays another cent, a beneficiary must obtain 
$5,600 worth of prescription drugs for the year.
  That is pretty complicated, and that is what the Republicans are 
counting on, that they will just use some words and you will not be 
able to do the math. But you have got to understand it. The Republican 
Medicare proposal has even greater gaping holes than they want to 
admit. Under their plan the benefit is so limited that it will not be 
worthwhile for many middle-class seniors to even enroll, it will not 
cover all seniors, and there is even a bigger problem. The Republican 
plan forces seniors to shop for and buy a private insurance plan, a 
plan which virtually every insurance company in America says they will 
not even offer because it is not worth it, and so seniors will have to 
go without coverage at all.
  We know this model does not work. It did not work in 1965, and that 
is why we created Medicare to begin with. The insurance companies, as I 
said, say it will not work either. The Health Insurance Association of 
America said it will not offer drug-only policies.
  The Republican prescription plan does nothing to slow prescription 
drug prices from continuing their upward spiral, and the Republican 
plan is simply guaranteed to fail. There they go again, putting words 
on a bill which has no meaning for the average American today.
  Learn how do the math, everybody, because this is going to be a basic 
debate in America over the next few weeks. We need to pass a meaningful 
prescription drug plan that uses Medicare to make drugs affordable and 
provides a universal voluntary benefit for all seniors.

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