[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Pages 31817-31818]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           PASSAGE OF H.R. 1

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I rise to comment briefly about the 
legislation which we have just passed and also about the omnibus 
appropriations bill. I compliment all of those involved in this 
Medicare bill. It is a long time in coming. It will provide much needed 
relief to America's seniors on the high cost of prescription drugs. It 
will eliminate the cuts in Medicare which were supposed to take effect 
in 2004 and 2005. It will, in fact, give the doctors an increase of 1.5 
percent.
  There was also a mechanism for changing the wage index classification

[[Page 31818]]

for metropolitan statistical areas, the MSAs, so that the Secretary 
will have discretion to make that correction.

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