[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  (Ms. SOLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle to bring to this House an affordable and 
guaranteed Medicare prescription drug benefit to seniors. So far, my 
Republican colleagues have proposed a bill that does nothing to lower 
the cost of prescription drugs and actually raises seniors' Medicare 
part B deductible at a rate of eight times higher than their Social 
Security cost of living increase, which was just 1.5 percent.
  Perhaps they are not hearing the same message that I hear when I go 
home and talk to my constituents. In the cities that I represent in 
East Los Angeles and in the San Gabriel Valley, seniors are telling me 
that they want an affordable and guaranteed drug benefit, just like the 
Democratic plan. They do not want a voucher program that dismantles 
Medicare as they know it. They simply want their medicine, and they 
want a choice to be able to keep their doctor.
  Thirty-eight years ago this program was created. So many people in 
our district, the district that I represent, feel that this is their 
safety net and here we are attempting to try to privatize it. That is 
the wrong thing to do while people right now are struggling to make 
ends meet. Vote down this proposition that is being put forward by the 
Republican Party.

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