"Instead, this budget raids the Medicare Trust Fund to pay for an inadequate prescription drug benefit plan that does not cover all seniors, which is especially troubling in light of a new study released earlier in the week showing that prescription drug costs increased by nearly $132 billion this year.  We must provide prescription drug coverage for all seniors without dipping into Medicare money already reserved for doctor and hospital visits, and we should do it now.  

"This budget does not devote a single dollar other than Social Security and Medicare trust fund monies to paying down the national debt.  I believe that is wrong.  The Social Security and Medicare trust funds were created to provide Social Security and Medicare benefits to our seniors, and they should not be used to pay for tax cuts or other spending.  

"This budget also depends on surpluses being projected over the next 10 years by the same bureaucrats that missed the mark by $700 billion last year, while most of the projected surplus does not occur until after the year 2006.  If these projections are off by just 2%, this budget puts us right back into deficit spending.  

"This is America, and we must do better by our seniors and working families.  As a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, I support a budget that protects Social Security and Medicare, pays down the national debt, and truly addresses important priorities such as education, agriculture, defense, and providing real prescription drug coverage for all seniors."

“This study shows that our seniors cannot afford to wait any longer for Congress to continue stalling on this critical issue,” Ross said.  “Our seniors should not be increasingly forced to choose between getting their prescriptions filled and buying groceries just so the big pharmaceutical companies can fill their pockets.”

According to the study issued today by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that researches health care issues, two dozen products accounted for 50 percent of the increase.  The study showed aggressive marketing of prescription drugs to doctors and consumers as a major contributor to the increase in sales, with consumers learning of new remedies and asking their physicians to prescribe the medications. 

“At the family pharmacy that my wife, Holly, and I own in Prescott, there is medicine on our shelves that costs more than I paid for a new car in 1979,” said Ross.  “Yet that same Medicine is being sold outside the United States for $200.  I believe that is wrong.

”The Republican budget has proposed $300 billion for a prescription drug benefit and other so-called “Medicare reform,” a figure that Ross says is not enough. 

“Their prescription drug plan is a ‘band-aid’ approach that only covers a limited number of seniors and uses money already set-aside for current Medicare benefits,” said Ross.  “Our seniors need and deserve a voluntary but guaranteed prescription drug benefit under the Medicare program that covers all seniors.”
 

“Today, our country is experiencing a surplus, and we should be proud of that,” Ross said.  “However, much of that surplus was achieved on the backs of Medicare beneficiaries and providers.  Too many communities in Arkansas and across America have endured closures of hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies as well as limits on beneficiary access to care because Medicare payment reductions in recent years have been larger than intended.”  

Ross explained that the medical center in his rural hometown of Prescott was forced to close in 1995, something he said he did not wish on any community.  In response to this crisis, Ross is seeking to pass several pieces of legislation that could restore some financial footing to struggling health care facilities.   

These measures include a bill that will give hospitals a full market basket, or inflation, update for the next two years and help teaching hospitals defray high costs of treating medically complex patients as well as legislation that would set a minimum Medicare reimbursement payment for area wage indexes to attract and retain critical hospital labor.  He is also cosponsoring a measure to require the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to document the costs of its regulations to health care providers and educate providers on proper paperwork procedures as well as a bill that will increase Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) allotments from 1% to 3% of program costs to ease the heavy burden on our nation’s safety net hospitals that provide health care access to the uninsured.  Arkansas ranks first in the country in the number of working uninsured.  

“These initiatives are a step in the right direction toward saving our rural health care providers and assisting those in more urban areas,” said Ross, “which could mean the difference between life and death or having a decent quality of life for many patients.  Every citizen, regardless of where he or she lives, should have access to proper health care, and I will fight to see that we achieve this goal.”  

In recognition of National Hospital Week this week (May 6-12), Ross chose to return to the hospital where he was born to make the announcement.  Following the press conference, Ross toured the Christus St. Michael Health System and visited with administrators and staff.  He praised their work with other health care facilities in the area, including De Queen, Magnolia, and his hometown of Prescott.  Ross and his wife, Holly, own a family pharmacy and home medical equipment business in Prescott.