[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 21]
[House]
[Page 29694]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                VOTE AGAINST MEDICARE MODERNIZATION BILL

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we have before us not a simple prescription 
drug benefit for seniors which they need and which is long overdue, not 
just a complicated, convoluted, expensive and inadequate benefit for 
seniors, it is the pharmaceutical promotion and profits protection act. 
It prohibits any mandated, or even negotiated reductions in the 
extortionate price of pharmaceuticals. Yes, it would outlaw the Federal 
Government negotiating for price reductions on behalf of Medicare 
beneficiaries. It will block seniors who are seeking to import less 
expensive U.S. manufactured drugs from Canada. It provides a $20 
billion subsidy to the private insurance industry to undermine 
Medicare. It is a cruel hoax targeted on the most vulnerable among us. 
It is not, as the gentleman from Florida said, bipartisan.
  I knew Claude Pepper. I served with Claude Pepper. And FDR, I did not 
know him, but I know that he passed Social Security without a single 
Republican vote. And LBJ passed Medicare without support on that side. 
Now suddenly in defense of the pharmaceutical industry and the private 
insurance industry, they want to attack Medicare but pretend they are 
doing this for the good of seniors.

                          ____________________