[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5448]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        MEDICARE PART D DEADLINE

  (Ms. CARSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. CARSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to warn our seniors, a tax for 
your health will soon be upon you. The tax will be placed on those of 
you who have not signed up for Medicare part D by the President's 
arbitrary deadline.
  The changes to the system are confusing to lawyers, seniors, and 
Members of Congress. We are forcing seniors to navigate unnecessarily 
confusing new programs and telling them do not pick the right program, 
just pick any program to prevent yourself from being faced with large 
penalties for joining late.
  We must step back and extend the deadline until the end of the year 
to ensure that seniors do not pay the price for a poorly laid out part 
D program through higher premiums for life.
  I have had several town hall meetings in my district in Indianapolis 
dealing with this whole Medicare quagmire. Over 1,000 seniors 
participated; and, unfortunately, they left just as confused as when 
they came. These are not the questions that we should have had our 
seniors asking.
  I would encourage all seniors not to get taxed further by failing to 
meet the May 15th deadline.
  Mr. Speaker, thousands of seniors came to a series of town hall 
meetings in my district alone and their stories were almost always one 
in the same, what must I do, how can I get that done and how much will 
it cost my already taxed budget. These are not the questions we should 
have our seniors asking as they lie awake in bed at night. We must not 
add another tax onto the budgets of our seniors. We have to deal with 
this already failing system but we should not penalize the people for 
the failure of Congress to create an easy to understand and 
comprehensive system. Stop the tax and extend the open enrollment 
period. As I mark another day off of this calendar I warn all Seniors 
don't allow yourself to fall into this tax trap, be prepared to submit 
your paperwork by May 15th.

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