I have got to tell my colleagues that it is a frustrating time for me because, as was mentioned, my wife and I own a small-town family pharmacy. She is a pharmacist. And I have seen so many seniors walk through the doors of our pharmacy who either could not afford their medicine or could not afford to take it properly. And living in a small town, Prescott, Arkansas, population 3,400, I know a week or two later that senior is 16 miles down the road in Hope, Arkansas, in the hospital having a leg amputated, running up a $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 Medicare bill for other complications simply because they could not afford their medicine or could not afford to take it properly. 

So I ran for Congress. I ran for Congress to try and modernize Medicare to include medicine for our seniors. And I knew it was pretty partisan in Washington, but I thought if there was an issue that would not be a Democrat issue or a Republican issue but, rather, a seniors issue, this would be it. But I got to town and learned it is a big drug manufacturers' issue. 

This is not a seniors bill we are going to be voting on this week. This is a bill written by the big drug manufacturers to benefit the big drug manufacturers. I am sick and tired of all this partisan bickering. I am sick and tired of Democrats being locked out, committee members being locked out of the room where they are writing this bill. If they get the drug manufacturers up out of the chairs at the table, they would have room for Members of Congress that have been elected like everyone else who had been appointed to that committee to address this issue. That is wrong and it is shameful, and it is a disgrace to our democracy. 

There are several problems with this bill. There are really a lot of problems with it. Let me just list a few of them for my colleagues, if I may. If anyone has any doubt in their mind whether or not this bill was written by the big drug manufacturers, believe me, their fingerprints are all over it. 

The Republican leadership actually had the nerve to put language in this bill that says the Federal Government shall be prohibited, prohibited, from negotiating with the big drug manufacturers to bring down the high cost of medicine. That is in the bill. And they call it a seniors' bill. 

The second problem is the privatization aspect. Let me tell you why the big drug manufacturers want to see this Medicare prescription drug benefit privatized. You hear how drugs are cheaper, less expensive, less costly in other countries. It is true. I did a study about a year ago where we compared the price paid by seniors in Arkansas's 4th Congressional District on the five most commonly used brand-name drugs with the price paid by seniors on those same drugs in seven other countries. And what we found was startling. Seniors in my congressional district back home in Arkansas pay on average 110 percent more, 110 percent more than seniors pay on average in those other countries. Now, why is that? Because America is the only industrialized nation in the world where people go without health insurance. 

In these other countries everybody has health insurance and in these other countries their governments tell the big drug manufacturers if you want your drug in our country, you are going to give us a discount. And they do. Well, the drug manufacturers know that if we have 40 million seniors all under one plan in America, then we too as a government will demand those kinds of discounts and rebates to help offset the cost of the program. Thus the reasoning for creating and privatizing a Medicare prescription drug benefit. 

Our parents, our grandparents are literally going to have hundreds of insurance companies knocking on their door, calling them on the phone, sending them mail all trying to sell them exactly the same policy because they want to spread those 40 million people every which way they can so no one will have the buying power to demand those discounts from the drug manufacturers. 

This bill does nothing to bring down the high cost of prescription drugs. In fact, no insurance company has come forward to say they will offer a prescription drug plan for seniors. And that is why in this bill, the Republicans have put a $12 slush fund, $12 billion, they are just going to give to private insurance companies that will agree to offer a prescription drug benefit for seniors. There is a reason Medicare was created 38 years ago. Insurance is about spreading the risk. And the reality is with seniors there is no risk to spread. Seniors spend a lot of money on health care to either stay healthy or to get well. Privatizing Medicare will not work. If they get away with this, Social Security will be next. 

Finally, the benefit itself. Number one is, as my colleague from Texas (Mr. Sandlin) said so eloquently, the benefit does not even start until 2006. Folks, any time there is a plan offered up that does not kick in until after the next election, you ought to be leery of it. This plan does not even kick in until 2006. And when it does, this is what everyone get, and when I explain what they get, they are going to have a clear understanding of why they want to make sure it does not kick in until after the next election: 

There is a premium of about $35 a month, although they cannot tell you for sure what it will be, but they think somewhere around $35 a month. That is $420 a year. Then there is a deductible of $275 a year. Then from $275 worth of prescription drugs each year that a senior meets up to $2,200, the senior pays 25 percent and Medicare pays 75 percent. That part actually sounds pretty decent. So the senior is out $481.25 on that part. But listen to this: once the senior has spent $2,200 on prescription drugs in a year, and as a small-town pharmacy owner I can tell you for a lot of seniors that only takes about 3 or 4 or 5 months, once a senior spends $2,200, all the way up to $5,044, the senior is back paying the full cost of the prescription on their own. Medicare pays nothing. But, guess what? Medicare continues to bill you the $35-a-month premium. That is $2,844 out of seniors' pockets. 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, maybe my colleague was going to say it, but we have done some statistical analysis that shows the majority of the seniors fall into the donut hole. So some people might think, well, I am not going to fall into that, but most seniors will be in that situation where they are paying a premium and getting nothing at some point. 

Mr. ROSS. Absolutely, good point, and I appreciate the gentleman from New Jersey pointing that out.  The bottom line is, and you need a CPA to figure this thing out, but when you take all the numbers I just presented and add them up, and the bottom line, all this talk on the floor of the House of Representatives, the vote that is going to occur is going to boil down to this, that in 2006 seniors are going to get a prescription drug plan written by the big drug manufacturers that requires seniors to pay out of their own pocket $4,020.25 out of the first $5,044. Let me repeat that. Seniors under this plan, which does not even start until 2006, are going to pay $4,020.25 out of the first $5,044. 

Contrast that to Members of Congress, the health insurance plan we have, and quite frankly, the health insurance plan that most people who are fortunate to have health insurance in America now is very similar. Members of Congress pay $1,261 on the first $5,044, with their insurance plan picking up the difference. So the Republican leadership thinks that they should only pay $1,261 on the first $5,044, but they want seniors, they want our mothers and grandmothers, to pay $4,020.25 on the first $5,044. 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the reason why the Republicans have carved out this donut hole, which is going to make all these seniors, as my colleague says, pay a premium and get nothing in return is because they save a tremendous amount of money. Here they are worried about saving some money at the expense of the seniors at the Federal Government level, but yet they are going to throw all this money to the HMOs and to private companies to plus up the money that they get, and they do not have to have any kind of cost containment which would bring the costs down to the Federal Government. After all, if we had cost containment, the Federal Government would not have to shell out all this extra money, and we could fill that donut hole. I mean, it is just a way of saving money to the Federal Government, but at the same time, at the expense of the senior citizens. 

Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, my good friend from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) brings up an excellent point, and our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans, continually say we need to offer a plan to seniors that is just as good as the ones that the Members of Congress have, and if it is good enough for Congress, then it is good enough for our seniors. I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Arkansas about that and ask him, does the plan presented by the Republicans match the plan in Congress, and do we in Congress have a donut hole? Is there any gap in coverage suffered by the Members of Congress? 

Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress pay 25 percent of the cost of the medicine, at least under the health plan that I am on and most of us are on. There are several options to choose from, and anyone with private health insurance, and again we have got 43.6 million people without health insurance in this country. Ten million of them unfortunately are children, but most people fortunate enough to have health insurance pay roughly 20 to 25 percent of the cost of the medicine. So in the first $5,044, Members of Congress pay $1,261, but the Republican national leadership wants our mothers and grandmothers and fathers and grandfathers to pay $4,020.25 out of the first $5,044, and that is a benefit that does not even kick in until 2006. 

I will give them this. Starting in April of 2004, they are going to give our seniors a prescription drug discount card. You stay up late enough tonight and watch cable TV. They will be advertised on TV. You can buy them, and any discount that is realized from that card comes directly from your family pharmacy and not from the big drug manufacturer. 

Again, they are not going to the root of the cause. Eighty-seven percent of the costs of medicine comes from the big drug manufacturer. This discount card does not discount any of the money paid by the big drug manufacturer, and so the savings amounts to 50 cents to $3. They did a study on this. This literally amounts to 50 cents to $3. 

So you take a senior that is on six prescriptions a month and a $500 drug bill, let us say it is $3 per prescription. That is an $18 savings. How in the world is that going to help seniors choose between the light bill, rent, or groceries? 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman is familiar with the pharmacy industry. The bill avoids any cost containment. It actually says the Secretary of Medicare administrator cannot negotiate price reductions. There is nothing in the bill with these discount cards that would have any impact on the drug companies' ability to raise prices. So you might not save anything, right, if they raise the price and you get the same discount? You may end up paying more. 

Mr. ROSS. Number 1, the discount is not being paid by the drug manufacturer, which is 87 percent of the cost to the manufacturer. The discount is being paid by your family pharmacy in amounts of 50 cents to $3. 

More importantly, and I do not think this has ever been raised on the floor of this House, but this bill preempts State laws that regulate discount cards. About half the States in America, because these cards are so fly-by-night and so fraudulent and have ripped off so many seniors, because they find out the benefit they are getting from it is less than what they charge per month for the card, that most States in America now have regulations to monitor and control these so-called discount prescription drug cards. This bill preempts those State laws. There will be no regulation of these discount card companies.  Max Richtman is the head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. I want to say they are a bipartisan group. They are not. They are nonpartisan, and they are nonprofit. That is the Nation's second largest senior advocacy group, and I think he put it pretty well. He said, Have you ever heard of Medicare fraud? This Republican prescription drug bill, it is Medicare fraud. It is nothing more than a false hope and a false promise for our seniors. 

This is America, and we can do better than this by our seniors, by our greatest generation.