 |
|
|
|
|
| I recently encountered an elderly woman in Glenwood,
a retired pharmacist who just happened to have been a relief pharmacist
at the pharmacy my family used when I was a small child growing up in Prescott.
She told me that at that time, if she filled a prescription and it cost
more than $5, she would go ahead and fill the next prescription while she
tried to build up enough courage and confidence to go out and tell the
patient that their medicine was going to cost $5. My, my, how times
have changed.
At our small town family pharmacy in Prescott, a pharmacy not unlike the one I just mentioned, the prescriptions can cost as much as $100, $200, or even more. I know the amount of courage it takes to face customers with prices like that, knowing they must find room in their $600 social security check, if that much, to pay for it. I recently commissioned a study which revealed that seniors in my own district who lack prescription drug coverage pay on average more than twice as much for the five most popular prescription drugs than they would pay if they lived in a foreign country. I do not know how we in Congress can summon the courage to continue letting our seniors fend for themselves with prices like that. Yet House Republicans are intent on pushing through a plan that is at best a Band-Aid for this healthcare crisis. It does not adequately provide for our seniors, but instead protects the big drug manufacturers that impose these high prices on our seniors. What’s more, Republicans have blocked efforts by Democrats to improve this plan to include a meaningful prescription drug benefit for our seniors. America’s greatest generation deserves better than that. Our Democratic plan is simple. We say that going to the pharmacy and getting your medicine ought to be treated just like going to the doctor and going to the hospital - it should be covered by Medicare. I have asked my Republican colleagues to step up to the plate and support the plan that I call the “seniors’ plan,” and I will continue to fight to ensure that the plan that comes out of Congress will be the plan that does right by our seniors. |
