“The current lack of access to affordable prescription medicine for our seniors is a national crisis,” Ross said.  “Now is not the time to propose damaging Band-Aid solutions like distributing discount cards or forcing seniors to drop out of traditional Medicare and join HMO’s to get the medicine they need.  As a small town family pharmacy owner, I can tell you that this type of system will place our seniors’ health at risk.  This issue is not about Democrats or Republicans, it’s about our seniors, and I will not rest until they can walk into a pharmacy of their choice, pull out their Medicare card, and be treated just like they would when they visit their doctor or a hospital.” 

The Medicare Rx Benefit and Discount Act will make prescription drugs available under Medicare and will guarantee lower prices for these drugs.  The House Democratic proposal adds a new Part D in Medicare that provides voluntary prescription drug coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries beginning in 2005. Under this legislation, a beneficiary would pay a $25 a month premium, a small annual deductible of $100, 20 percent co-insurance, $25 monthly premium, and would never spend more than $2,000 a year on prescription drugs. The bill requires better prices on prescription drugs by requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate discounted drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. 

Earlier today, the Bush Administration put forth a plan that will force seniors to drop out of traditional, fee-for-service Medicare and join HMO’s or other private health plans in order to receive a prescription drug benefit.  In fact, many seniors would lose the ability to choose their own doctors under this plan.

“I live in a town with a population of 3,400.  My pharmacy serves seniors who have just as great a need for prescription drug coverage as anyone.  Yet under the President’s plan, they would have to join a private HMO to get their medicine, and visit the doctor and the pharmacy that their HMO dictates.   These are people who have grown up and grown old in rural Arkansas, who have been with the same doctor and the same pharmacist for sometimes decades, who depend on those doctors and pharmacists and trust them with their health and with their lives.  Are we to simply throw that trust out the window and force these seniors to start all over?  I will not stand by and let this happen.  I applaud President Bush for making a Medicare prescription drug benefit a priority. However, I reject his proposed solution.  America’s greatest generation deserves better than this.”