[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11230-11231]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
     THE SHAME AND THE SHAM OF THE MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL

  (Mr. RYAN of Ohio asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that the 
other side has taken this opportunity to talk about the Medicare 
prescription drug bill. Two provisions the Democrats wanted to get in: 
one, reimport the prescriptions from Canada, drop the price in the 
United States of America and allow a free market competition; and, two, 
ask the Secretary of HHS to buy in bulk on behalf of the Medicare 
recipients, again dropping the prices. But the increased amounts of 
campaign contributions to this body has led to both of those provisions 
being absent.
  The thing that Democrats are most offended about is not the cost. It 
is about the deceit. We were told $400 billion this program would cost. 
Actuaries were told not to release the real figures to Congress, and 
the real figures ended up being $140 billion more. That is the shame, 
and that is the sham.

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