It is wrong that the highest profiting industry in America, the big drug manufacturers, is one that relies on customers with some of the lowest incomes, our senior citizens.  As a small town family pharmacy owner, I have literally seen senior citizens who cannot afford the medicines they need, and I have seen them end up at the doctor’s office or the hospital, or even require a needless surgery as a result. On many occasions, it is a senior trying to squeeze their $400 worth of monthly medicine out of a $600 monthly Social Security check. Sometimes, it is even worse than that.  

This plan will help to make it work for them.  This plan will help our seniors overcome the price barrier keeping them from better health.  Under this new plan, Medicare will cover 80 percent of the cost of medicine, in exchange for a low monthly premium of $25, and a low annual deductible of $100.

Our health care system spends roughly $170 billion every year on needless hospital and doctor visits because of people experiencing adverse drug effects often from not being able to afford their medicine or not being able to afford to take it properly.  Enacting a meaningful prescription drug benefit under Medicare will not only provide real savings for seniors, but it will cut many of these needless hospital, doctor visits, and surgeries that cost Medicare billions of dollars each year.  

As a fiscal conservative, I believe we must be responsible in handling our nation’s budget.  But there are times when our government needs to step up to the plate and spend the money necessary to solve a problem and solve it right.  This is one of those times.  It is time that we held the big drug manufacturers accountable.  It is time that Congress united to provide meaningful prescription drug coverage for all seniors.  That is what our bill is all about.