[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

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Only in Washington, Mr. Speaker, could Congress be 
prepared to add a whole new entitlement to Medicare which may cost 
children like my today 10-year-old daughter Charlotte $7 trillion and 
Democrats are holding up tombstones to say Medicare is being phased 
out. It is astonishing to a conservative like me.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, I informed our leadership that I cannot support 
the creation of a new Federal entitlement in the form of a universal 
drug benefit in Medicare, which is not to say that I am not ready today 
to help those at or near the level of poverty that are struggling with 
that terrible choice between food and rent and prescription drugs.

                              {time}  1015

  Let us focus resources at the point of the need and not answer the 
scare tactics of the other side and end up playing their game and 
creating an all new massive Federal entitlement that kids like my 
little Charlotte will have to pay for for generations.

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