[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11256]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               GIVE SENIORS AFFORDABLE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, get the senior tour buses gassed up to 
travel to Canada, because under the Republican prescription drug plan 
seniors will not find any relief from the high costs of prescription 
drugs. In fact, Americans pay three to four times more for their 
medications than any other people in the world; and the prices of the 
50 most commonly prescribed drugs for seniors increased last year 
nearly three times the rates of inflation.
  Yet the Republican bill does not do one thing to reduce the root 
cause of our Nation's crisis in access to affordable life-saving 
medications and that is their costs.
  Under the Republican plan, seniors would be forced to purchase drugs 
through private drug policies, another slippery slope to the dangerous 
path to privatization.
  And as if attempting to privatize Medicare were not enough, the 
Republican bill covers less than a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries' 
estimated drug costs over the next 10 years.
  Frankly, the Republican bill preserves the inflated prices of one of 
their biggest set of contributors. It is no wonder the pharmaceutical 
companies showed up in droves last week at the Republican party's $30 
million fund raising bash here in Washington.
  In fact, Bob Novak from CNN gave us insight into that fund-raiser. He 
said, ``This is one of the great fund-raisers of all time, because 
people going to see these things for 20 years had never found them so 
crowded. It was chair to chair, back to back.'' And they had to pay 
$100,000 to get into the photo session with the President. If you 
wanted to sit on the platform with the President, that cost a little 
more. You had to pay $250,000 in order to do that.
  I guess they will try to get the government they are paying for 
unless the American people pay attention.
  Now with all the high rhetoric surrounding the Republican plan one 
might think it provides a real benefit, but take a closer look. Under 
the Republican plan you may, and I stress may, be able to choose from a 
private program that will cost you $35 a month. Yes, their bill does 
not cap the drug premium. In fact, insurers would set the premium cost, 
and it would vary from plan to plan, place to place.
  But let us ignore that flaw for a moment and assume it might be about 
$35 a month. So that is $420 a year for that premium. For the first 
$250 you spend on prescription medication, this new plan will pay you 
exactly nothing. That is right. If you need no more than $250 worth of 
medication, this plan will cost you $670 a year, the $35 monthly 
premium plus the $250 deductible.
  Now if you are one of every three Medicare beneficiaries who spend 
less than $500 on medication every year, you are in for a treat. What 
would have cost you $500 will cost you $720 under the Republican plan. 
Yes, you would actually pay almost 50 percent more under their plan 
than you would pay without it.

                              {time}  1815

  Maybe a person spends closer to $1,000 a year, as half of the 
Medicare population does. If so, they do fare a bit better. If their 
medications will cost $1,000, they will spend $420 on the program, $250 
for the first batch of drugs and then 20 percent of the next $750 they 
owe, or $150. That adds up to $820. They will have saved $160.
  But if someone is among the 30 percent of Medicare recipients that 
spends more than $2,000 a year for drugs, I am afraid we have some bad 
news for them. Under the Republican plan, they are on their own for 
every dollar between $2,000 and $3,800. This plan will not pay them a 
cent.
  Their plan is simply a sad attempt to gain political cover by 
sounding like they are working for and care about seniors while 
simultaneously draining Social Security and Medicare trust funds to pay 
for huge breaks for the superrich contributors.
  So ignore the Republican rhetoric. We should provide seniors with a 
real and meaningful prescription drug benefit. We should encourage 
aggregate buying by groups of seniors, not sending each senior out 
there with some kind of expensive privatized plan in the rough waters 
of the marketplace in their very, very small canoes.
  The first step to make Medicare and prescription medication available 
to our seniors at more affordable prices and to make them more 
available is to vote ``no'' on the risky Republican Medicare drug plan 
they intend to bring up this week.

                          ____________________