[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 29109-29110]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ON MEDICARE CONFERENCE REPORT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to express my extreme 
disappointment regarding the tentative agreement that has been reached 
by the Republicans in Congress with regard to Medicare and prescription 
drugs.
  Mr. Speaker, the source of my frustration stems from the fact that 
this agreement is not good public policy. It is not good for seniors or 
any Medicare consumer and it does nothing to reduce the cost of soaring 
prescription drugs.
  What this bill does, simply stated, is it kills the Medicare program 
and, in the process, shores up hundreds of billions of dollars of 
funding for the HMO industry and for the name-brand pharmaceutical 
industry. If this so-called deal is enacted into law, make no mistake 
about it, the Medicare program will be privatized. Medicare, as we know 
it today, will be turned into a voucher system and seniors will be 
forced into HMO's.
  Republicans are trying to fool us into believing that their 
privatization provisions are merely a demonstration project or a test, 
but nothing could be further from the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican Medicare provisions are unacceptable 
because they have nothing to do with prescription drugs. The ``demo'' 
goes way beyond the scope of providing seniors with prescription drug 
coverage, and, in fact, aims to bankrupt seniors, denying them their 
right to adequate health care under Medicare, and ultimately forcing 
them into HMOs because they can no longer afford Medicare.
  This is exactly where the insurance companies come in to get their 
big payoff because greater risk and cost are shifted to senior 
citizens.
  Furthermore, the provisions in the medicare agreement that deal with 
prescription drug coverage are completely inadequate in terms of 
benefit structure. We are talking about a $275 deductible, a $35 
monthly premium, 75-25 coverage, in other words, 75 percent paid by the 
Federal Government, 25 percent by the senior to the first $2,200 and no 
assistance until $3,600, at which point, the catastrophic is reached. 
So there is a huge doughnut hole; basically, between $2,200 and $3,600, 
in assistance, seniors get nothing. This means that seniors will have 
to pay nearly $2,600 before the government pays for all drug costs.
  Twenty million seniors or half of all seniors will be paying premiums 
year-round but would have no coverage for part of the year due to this 
large gap or doughnut hole in the coverage.
  Now, the combination of this insufficient benefit combined with 
watered-down generic provisions, watered-down reimportation provisions, 
and the prohibition of the Medicare Administrator to negotiate lower 
drug prices brings me to my point that this Medicare final agreement is 
a giveaway to the name-brand pharmaceutical industry.
  Mr. Speaker, there are so many fundamental problems with this 
upcoming Medicare agreement beyond what I have discussed tonight. There 
is no Medicare fallback in this bill that is favorable to seniors. We 
expect 2 to 3 million retirees to have their coverage dropped. Ten 
million, or one out of four, seniors will be forced to pay more for 
Medicare or to join an HMO. Low-income seniors are not financially 
protected and will be subject to an assets test for the first time in 
Medicare history. And the Medicare Part B will rise for the first time 
in 12 years. Means testing will be implemented in the Medicare program 
for the first time in its history, and tax sheltered accounts for the 
wealthy are going to be part of this bill, even though it is not really 
a Medicare bill.
  Mr. Speaker, the list of problems in this so-called Medicare 
agreement is overwhelming, and I really do not know how the Republicans 
or groups like the AARP or the President and others who have endorsed 
this agreement can live with their deceit and ill will against 
America's seniors.

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