My wife and I are very fortunate that in our hometown of Prescott, the family pharmacy that we own is such a gathering place.  It is a place where people come to share recent photographs of their children and grandchildren, to celebrate the good times together and, yes, to be there for one another during the difficult times. 

  I must say, I see way too many difficult times.  Prior to being elected to the United States Congress last year, I worked in that pharmacy. This is an issue I do not just talk about. I worked with it. I saw seniors that were literally forced to choose between buying their medicine, paying their natural gas bill and buying their groceries. 

   Living in a small town, I would learn a week later where a senior would end up in the hospital running up a $10,000 or $20,000 Medicare bill or where a diabetic would lose a leg or spend in excess of half a million dollars of Medicare money receiving kidney dialysis before eventually dying, simply because they could not afford their medicine or could not afford to take it properly. I do not just talk about this.  I worked with it.  I saw it.  I can put names to the faces. 

   This is America, and I believe we can do better than that by our seniors.  That is why I will continue to fight to modernize Medicare to include a voluntary, but guaranteed, prescription drug benefit. 

   Now what do I mean by that?  When I say voluntary, that means if one has a plan, if they are fortunate enough to be one of the few seniors on Medicare in America who have medicine coverage from a previous employer, and they like it, they ought to be able to keep it.  So it should be voluntary. 

   Just recently, during the spring district work period, I had a town hall meeting in conjunction with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare in one of the more affluent counties in my 26-county district, Garland County.  More than 100 seniors showed up for that town hall meeting on Social Security and Medicare, and I asked those who had medicine coverage of any kind to raise their hand.  Less than 10 hands in the room went up.  Then when I asked them to keep their hand up if they were confident they would be able to keep that coverage for the rest of their life, nearly every single hand in the room went down. 

   I come from a very rural and poor district.  The average household income in my district is only $19,000 a year.  It is where very few seniors have any prescription drug coverage.  So it should be voluntary, but it should be guaranteed. Just like under Medicare one can go to the doctor and they can go to the hospital. This is very important to our seniors.  This is an issue that I ran for the Congress on, an issue that I will not stop fighting for until we finally do truly modernize Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit that is voluntary but guaranteed just like going to the doctor, just like going to the hospital. 

   One of the problems we have in this country, I think, is created by the big drug manufacturers. I have bottles of medicine on the shelf of my pharmacy that cost more than I paid for a new car in 1979, and yet that same bottle is being sold in Canada and Mexico for ten cents on the dollar. We are talking about drugs that are being invented in America, oftentimes with government subsidized research. They are being made in America, and they are being shipped from America and sold for a fraction of the cost to these other countries. 

   So what does that mean?  That means all of us in America are subsidizing the cost of health care for these other countries.  I think it is time we stood up to the big drug manufacturers and said enough is enough.  It is time we demanded the kind of rebates to help pay for a Medicare drug program from them that they are now dishing out left and right to the big HMOs and to our States' Medicaid programs.  Now I know the debate so far in Congress has been about the budget and tax cuts, and I hope we can now move from that very important subject of the budget and tax cuts into spending some quality time making something happen that will truly modernize Medicare to include medicine for every single senior citizen in America who needs it and wants it. 

   Now we are hearing a lot of talk about this projected surplus, some $5 trillion.  Well, it is a projection over 10 years, and it is being projected by the same bureaucrats that missed it by the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars last year.  Seventy-five percent of that surplus does not even get here until 2006 through 2011, based on their projections, if they are right. Nearly half that surplus is Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund money. 

   When we talk about the highway trust fund we do not dare talk about counting it in the surplus. I am not advocating that we do.  The highway trust fund money ought to go to improve our roads.  What I am advocating is that we stop talking about Medicare and Social Security when we talk about this Nation's surplus.  That is why the first bill I filed as a Member of the United States Congress was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security Trust Fund, to keep their hands off the Medicare Trust Fund. 

   I urge my colleagues to work together.  Let us put progress over partisanship, and let us give our seniors a Medicare prescription drug benefit that means something, one that they can count on.