Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2007--Continued

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--Continued

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, it is beyond my understanding when the argument is made that this program is too confusing because there are too many plans, and then you add yet another plan. That is what this amendment does. They say there is too much confusion and there are too many plans, and they want to add another plan.

This amendment is going to destroy the competitive incentives and replace them with a Government-controlled regime. It puts the Government into the full-time business of setting drug prices and determining what drugs are covered. Strong competition has led to lower costs. The average premium is $25. That is 20 percent less than we expected.

This amendment would result in higher premiums. This amendment would also have a drug safety issue with it. This amendment would force plans to keep unsafe drugs in the formulary because what is on at the first of the year has to stay on through the whole year. So if Vioxx was on in January 2004 and was found unsafe in September 2004, it would still have to be on the formulary for another 3 months.

This is a Government-run plan. It increases costs and has price controls and unsafe drugs. This is just not a good amendment.

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