[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5502]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  (Ms. SOLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, last week I met with the Esperanza Senior 
Citizen Club in City Terrace in East Los Angeles to discuss the new 
Medicare prescription drug law enacted last year. The seniors there had 
many, many questions. They asked me how the law will affect them and 
will it provide affordable drugs. Unfortunately, I had to tell them 
that the law does nothing to lower the cost of prescription drugs. In 
fact, I told them that it prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services from negotiating lower prices. They were star struck. They 
could not believe that that is what we had passed here in the Congress.
  In short, the law increases profits for big pharmaceutical companies 
and fails to protect seniors. The Esperanza Senior Club was shocked 
when they learned the truth about the new law because they felt that 
Congress had abandoned them. They told me to go back to Washington and 
they told me to renegotiate, to open up a discussion on that piece of 
legislation, because for them and the district that I represent, still 
they are not able to afford their drugs, their medications; and they 
want choices. They wanted to know if they were going to have the same 
physician caring for them in the HMOs.

                          ____________________