Encouraging All Eligible Medicare Beneficiaries to Review Available Options to Determine Whether Enrollment in a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan...

ENCOURAGING ALL ELIGIBLE MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES TO REVIEW AVAILABLE OPTIONS TO DETERMINE WHETHER ENROLLMENT IN A MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN BEST MEETS THEIR NEEDS FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE -- (House of Representatives - May 10, 2006)

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, there are times that I wonder whether my colleagues on the other side of the aisle live in a different reality from the rest of us. This resolution encourages senior citizens and persons with disabilities to carefully review all the part D private plan options before them and determine whether to purchase a policy.

We all want senior citizens and disabled people to make informed choices, and we have been helping them, but the reality is there is no way that the millions of beneficiaries who have not enrolled are going to be able to do that in the next 5 days.

The Republican resolution completely ignores the complicated mess that the Republican Congress created in part D. It ignores the fact that current HHS Secretary Leavitt's parents, who he helped, got it wrong and had to change plans.

It ignores the Kaiser Family Foundation report that nearly half of all citizens don't know about the May 15 deadline or the lifetime financial punishment they will face if they miss it, permanent higher premiums as long as they live.

It ignores the GAO report that the Medicare hotline gave inaccurate or inadequate information on which was the best plan to 60 percent of the callers.

It ignores the fact that independent counselors are inundated and unable to provide unbiased advice to sort out the dozens of private plans available.

It ignores the Family USA Report that three out of four low income seniors have not signed up.

It ignores the fact that half of the seniors who didn't have drug coverage last year still don't have it today. That is 10 million people.

It ignores the fact that yesterday's CNN poll said that 47 percent of seniors said the part D program isn't working.

As hard as the Republicans may work to ignore reality, the real reality out there for most people, it won't go away. And the pressure should not be on older and disabled Americans to act over the next 5 days. It should be on the Republican majority to extend the deadline and fix this mess.

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