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TAX CUTS LEAVE NO MONEY IN BUDGET FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE
Tuesday June 17, 2003FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2003
Contact: Josh Freed
(202) 225-4431
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) released the following opening statement for the Commerce Committee’s markup of the Republican Medicare/Prescription Drug Modernization proposal:
“I planned to speak today about how it reflects well on our committee and the Congress as a whole that we are taking up legislation to provide our nation’s seniors with a prescription drug benefit. The public need is real and it is great. Nearly 12 million seniors still have no drug coverage. Seniors spend three times as much out-of-pocket money for medical expenses as those under 65. Seniors are charged more for drugs by pharmaceutical companies than favored customers are.
But as I reviewed this legislation – as much as I was able to do so, given that we received the version we’re marking up around 5 o’ clock this morning – I was struck by the fact that this is not a proud moment in the history of Congress. Instead, I am about to be involved in a momentous markup that will be remembered for its sheer recklessness. We are destroying Medicare in the name of saving it.
I realize that this administration disdains Medicare, calling it a “disaster” and “dumb.” But this is a benefit that our nation’s seniors count on. They are looking to us to fix and expand the program, not slash and burn it.
If we want to talk about a disaster, let’s take a look at this plan we have before us. HMOs would design the new drug benefit with only a promise to stick around for a year. That would leave seniors potentially facing a change in plan, doctors, pharmacies and formularies each year. That sounds disastrous to me … and pretty dumb, too.
We have recognized that there is a public need to provide seniors with a prescription drug benefit. What does it say about our relative social values that the end result of our deliberations will be a bill that will not truly meet the needs of our elderly citizens? We will go around and around about the merits and demerits of this Republican legislation. Our ultimate inability to craft policy that will adequately cover the recognized public need will come down to costs.
And in the midst of this, we will break to vote on repealing the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans. This vote, of course, comes fast on the heels of the gargantuan Republican tax cut of 2003. Passed with gimmicks that hide its true cost, that tax cut will cost nearly a trillion dollars. And even if it’s out of fashion for me to bring it up, let’s not forget the big tax cut of 2001. This body has never met a reckless tax cut it did not love. But after giving so much many away to the rich, it can’t afford the adequate, comprehensive drug coverage it has promised seniors.
Prior to last year’s markup of a remarkably similar bill, I held a Prescription Drug Roundtable with older constituents from my Denver district. They know firsthand about the costs and inequities I mentioned here at the outset … huge out-of-pocket expenses, rising drug prices, insufficient coverage. They didn’t understand at that time why Congress has failed to provide seniors with a prescription drug benefit.
If we pass this legislation that does not accomplish these goals, seniors still won’t have an adequate prescription drug benefit. After the hoopla dies down, grim reality will set in. This reality will reflect a gap-ridden benefit design with the soon-to-be infamous donut hole and partial-year exclusions for many Medicare beneficiaries. And you know what? Seniors and the rest of the country will figure out who stuck it to them. It will be clear that Congress weighed the relative social merits and decided that a comprehensive prescription drug bill wasn’t quite as important as a tax cut for the wealthy.
A brief reflection of history will recall the ill-fated “Medicare Catastrophic Care Act of 1987.” Passed with great fanfare during the Reagan Administration, it was repealed by the first Bush Administration. Its fate was sealed because it promised more than it could deliver and passed costs on to seniors – leaving them with little protection against huge expenses for prescription drug costs that still continue to increase each year. The lesson we should learn from that experience is that seniors will not tolerate a bill that deceptively promises protection it does not provide. Let history be our judge if we pass similarly flawed legislation this time around. I suspect history will not judge us kindly if we are responsible for presiding over the beginning of the end for Medicare.”
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June 17, 2003
Contact: Josh Freed
(202) 225-4431
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) released the following opening statement for the Commerce Committee’s markup of the Republican Medicare/Prescription Drug Modernization proposal:
“I planned to speak today about how it reflects well on our committee and the Congress as a whole that we are taking up legislation to provide our nation’s seniors with a prescription drug benefit. The public need is real and it is great. Nearly 12 million seniors still have no drug coverage. Seniors spend three times as much out-of-pocket money for medical expenses as those under 65. Seniors are charged more for drugs by pharmaceutical companies than favored customers are.
But as I reviewed this legislation – as much as I was able to do so, given that we received the version we’re marking up around 5 o’ clock this morning – I was struck by the fact that this is not a proud moment in the history of Congress. Instead, I am about to be involved in a momentous markup that will be remembered for its sheer recklessness. We are destroying Medicare in the name of saving it.
I realize that this administration disdains Medicare, calling it a “disaster” and “dumb.” But this is a benefit that our nation’s seniors count on. They are looking to us to fix and expand the program, not slash and burn it.
If we want to talk about a disaster, let’s take a look at this plan we have before us. HMOs would design the new drug benefit with only a promise to stick around for a year. That would leave seniors potentially facing a change in plan, doctors, pharmacies and formularies each year. That sounds disastrous to me … and pretty dumb, too.
We have recognized that there is a public need to provide seniors with a prescription drug benefit. What does it say about our relative social values that the end result of our deliberations will be a bill that will not truly meet the needs of our elderly citizens? We will go around and around about the merits and demerits of this Republican legislation. Our ultimate inability to craft policy that will adequately cover the recognized public need will come down to costs.
And in the midst of this, we will break to vote on repealing the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans. This vote, of course, comes fast on the heels of the gargantuan Republican tax cut of 2003. Passed with gimmicks that hide its true cost, that tax cut will cost nearly a trillion dollars. And even if it’s out of fashion for me to bring it up, let’s not forget the big tax cut of 2001. This body has never met a reckless tax cut it did not love. But after giving so much many away to the rich, it can’t afford the adequate, comprehensive drug coverage it has promised seniors.
Prior to last year’s markup of a remarkably similar bill, I held a Prescription Drug Roundtable with older constituents from my Denver district. They know firsthand about the costs and inequities I mentioned here at the outset … huge out-of-pocket expenses, rising drug prices, insufficient coverage. They didn’t understand at that time why Congress has failed to provide seniors with a prescription drug benefit.
If we pass this legislation that does not accomplish these goals, seniors still won’t have an adequate prescription drug benefit. After the hoopla dies down, grim reality will set in. This reality will reflect a gap-ridden benefit design with the soon-to-be infamous donut hole and partial-year exclusions for many Medicare beneficiaries. And you know what? Seniors and the rest of the country will figure out who stuck it to them. It will be clear that Congress weighed the relative social merits and decided that a comprehensive prescription drug bill wasn’t quite as important as a tax cut for the wealthy.
A brief reflection of history will recall the ill-fated “Medicare Catastrophic Care Act of 1987.” Passed with great fanfare during the Reagan Administration, it was repealed by the first Bush Administration. Its fate was sealed because it promised more than it could deliver and passed costs on to seniors – leaving them with little protection against huge expenses for prescription drug costs that still continue to increase each year. The lesson we should learn from that experience is that seniors will not tolerate a bill that deceptively promises protection it does not provide. Let history be our judge if we pass similarly flawed legislation this time around. I suspect history will not judge us kindly if we are responsible for presiding over the beginning of the end for Medicare.”
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