[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16271]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         MEDICARE MODERNIZATION

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the Republican Medicare prescription drug 
bill will provide unprecedented benefits and protection. Unfortunately, 
the benefits and protection under this perverse legislation will all 
flow to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, not the seniors 
who need help paying their prescription drug bills. That is right. The 
biggest beneficiaries are the wildly profitable pharmaceutical industry 
and the anticompetitive insurance industry. You cannot provide a 
meaningful benefit unless you deal with the obscene price of 
prescription drugs. And this bill does nothing, not reasonable pricing, 
not reimportation, not negotiated lowering of prices, nothing, because 
that would hurt the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. The 
insurance industry, they will get a subsidy under this bill to offer 
some sort of benefit without any requirement what those benefits might 
be, without any limit on the premiums they might charge, without any 
requirement who they might provide coverage to or exclude, all 
beginning in 2006.
  We just heard about the great affordable plan we are going to offer 
today. This begins in the year 2006 and seniors who pay $4,500 a year 
for drugs will get $3,500 out of their pocket and a thousand from this 
bill. This is the pharmaceutical industry and insurance industry 
protection legislation.

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