Medicare Prescription Drug Legislation

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Medicare Prescription Drug Legislation

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his leadership on this and for this evening to bring to the attention of our House of Representatives just how really bad this media campaign is and how cynical it really is.

I heard the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) talking about the windfall that will come to the pharmaceutical industry because of the passage of this bill, something like $140 billion in additional windfall profits. But I do not know even in their wildest imaginations if they realized the taxpayers were also going to fund the media campaign to sell the plan that will bring them the $140 billion. So we are talking about a neat little $22 million ad campaign that is beginning.

I am sure maybe you talked about some of these things earlier, but you were just talking, too, about the political nature that we feel is involved in this ad campaign, that the timing has much more to do with an election in November than it does with really educating and informing seniors about the reality of this legislation and what it is going to mean to them. Fortunately, the seniors are smarter than I think some people on the other side of the aisle may think.

However, to add to the political connection, some of us wrote a letter to Dara Corrigan, the Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, and in that letter we were requesting an investigation of this ad campaign. Let me bring it to your attention.

The letter in part says, "It has also come to our attention that a media firm currently working for the President's reelection campaign has been hired to purchase the $9.5 million worth of television ad time for this new commercial. National Media, Inc., stands to make a windfall from this campaign. This is the same company that has been repeatedly hired for ad campaigns primarily funded by the Republican Party and by the drug industry. National Media, Inc., has done ad campaigns for Citizens for Better Medicare, a drug industry front group that has spent tens of millions of dollars on ads attacking lawmakers interested in lowering the cost of prescription drugs."

Now, we just passed a new campaign finance reform law that actually makes certain kinds of interlocking consultants and ad producers, et cetera, actually illegal.

I do not know if this is legal or not legal. We want the investigation to proceed forward, but it certainly smells bad when you have the Federal Government, with taxpayer dollars, taxpayer dollars, millions, hundreds of millions of Americans putting money into an ad campaign. I have seen it. I do not know if you have. It has been in the media market in the Chicago area. I saw it on television here in the D.C. area.

That ad campaign is promoted by the very same people who are working for the President's reelection campaign. To me, that is a smoking gun.

Mr. PALLONE. What I said earlier, and I strongly believe it when I say it is illegal, is because you cannot spend taxpayers' money on this kind of campaign for political or propaganda purposes. Now the fact that you point out this is the same media firm that is involved with the President's reelection, I think basically proves, or certainly shows dramatically, that it is political. In other words, this company is doing ads for the President's campaign, and now they are doing these ads for the department. They are getting paid now by taxpayers' money. So I think that kind of lends support to the idea that this is political.

I will even go one step further, which maybe you will not, but I would like to know at some point, hopefully with your GAO investigation or some other means, we will find out whether they get maybe a little discount on the political side for getting the contract to do the taxpayer-funded campaign. Who knows where this all goes? But it smells. There is no question about that.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The worst part of this deception is that it is going after senior citizens who count on prescription drugs day in and day out to extend and enhance and perhaps save their lives, and it is telling them things like, the ad itself, where a senior says, "So how is Medicare changing?" And the answer, "It is the same Medicare you have always counted on, plus more benefits, like prescription drug coverage."
If I am a senior and I am watching this, I am thinking, here it is, what I have been waiting for, a prescription drug benefit.
The first thing they are going to find out is, no, forget it, there is going to be nothing for 2 years except for, and we will talk about that later, this card. So there is not going to be any Medicare prescription drug plan of any sort for a couple of years.
Then when they really find out the details, some of them are going to find out, "If I join this plan, I am going to spend more on my Medicare." Millions of seniors would spend more if they signed up.
So when they say it is the same Medicare you always counted on, plus more benefits like prescription drug coverage, it is not true. It is simply not true.

The most generous thing we can say about it is that it is certainly not the full story and, for many seniors, simply not true.

Then it says, "Can I keep Medicare just how it is?" And that is a question that seniors are asking. They love their Medicare, for good reason. They can count on it, they can take it to the hospital, they can make sure that they can go see their doctor. They know their Medicare, and they love it. "Can I keep Medicare just how it is?" they ask on the ad. They say, "You can always keep your same Medicare coverage." The thing they do not say is how much you may have to pay for it.

Mr. PALLONE. Or, alternatively, that they may not get a prescription drug benefit at all if they keep the traditional fee-for-service plan.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Exactly. So, yes, you can keep your Medicare, but you may not get the same benefits; your premium may go sky high because the HMOs are skimming off the healthiest and the wealthiest. And, yes, you can have your Medicare, but it is going to cost so much more. Again, at the most generous, it is an incomplete answer and, really and truly, a deceptive answer. Seniors have to watch for that.
And then, "Will I save on my medicines?" And the announcer says, "You can save with your Medicare discount drug cards this June and save more with new prescription drug coverage in 2006." Do my colleagues know what? Many seniors already have a prescription drug card. Actually, they may have a few prescription drug cards. But under this new plan, they are only going to be allowed one Medicare discount card, which may not even provide all the medicines that they need.

The ad is misleading because seniors are led to believe that all of their medicines are going to be covered. It means that seniors will have to pay in order to get the discount card. It is not free. The ad does not mention that drugs that may be covered when you get the discount card could be dropped, leaving you with no savings, or you may end up in the middle of the year needing another medication you did not know about that is not on the card.

This is a bad deal, and this ad is telling seniors, in a glowing ad, it is a nice ad, is it not? I mean, it is pretty. It is pretty. I mean, it is so wrong. The ad is so wrong. But the fact that the seniors are actually paying for this ad that gives a false picture of their Medicare, which they love and they want to know the truth about, is nothing short of, I do not know if technically so but, in my mind, criminal.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), but of course what the gentlewoman is talking about are the TV ads, but we understand that this is going to be followed up in millions of dollars of print material, brochures that are going to be going out that are basically doing the same thing. So this is just the beginning; the TV ad is just the beginning of what they are going to do to try to distort what this is all about.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, this is a full media branding operation. I am sure all of the Madison Avenue guys are in there figuring out, how many impressions does it take? Who reads their mail? How many people watch television? Oh, yes, it is a very slick ad in time for the election.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, one of the producers of the ads did the 2000 George Bush ads, and it was found out after the election that they did this subliminal message on one of those 2000 ads when they were talking about Al Gore in the George Bush campaign where they put the word R-A-T-S, "rats," on the screen very quickly, so the human mind does not know that it sees it, but it actually was on the screen and it sticks in their mind without their knowing it. That is sort of the subliminal advertising that has been studied. The guy that did that is being paid by taxpayers and by seniors with Medicare money to do these ads.

That is incredible, considering, as the gentleman from New Jersey said at the beginning that the Bush campaign already has $100 million in the bank. The drug companies are going to put $100 million more in his campaign. They are going to make $140 billion or more extra profits from this bill. So it is pretty clear that they could have afforded it themselves, but they let taxpayers pick it up. It is pretty amazing.

Mr. Speaker, when I hear my friends talk about this, just about Medicare, I know people at home think that everybody is for Medicare, they would not want to mess up Medicare. But one of the differences of the two parties is that my friends on the other side of the aisle, and I think they are intellectually honest about it, but they really have never believed in Medicare. If we just briefly look at the history, 39 years ago when Medicare passed, only 10 Republicans voted for it. Gerald Ford voted against it, Bob Dole voted against it, Donald Rumsfeld voted against it, Strom Thurman voted against it in the Senate. They did not much like it then.

Then, in 1995 when the Republicans finally had the majority, the first thing Newt Gingrich did was try to cut Medicare by $270 billion and then predicted that it would wither on the vine. So this is a group that has never really bought into the whole point of traditional fee-for-service Medicare that serves 40 million people in this country. They want private insurance to do it. They have always wanted private insurance to do this. That is why they allowed the private insurance companies to write the bill.

But if this bill stays in effect, in 20 years Medicare will not be recognizable. It will be just like it was before 1965 when half the people in this country who are over 65 had no health insurance. Today, darn near everybody does, because we have this universal, beloved program called Medicare. The only people who really do not like Medicare are a few doctors that think they should be able to charge more and a bunch of Republican Members of Congress. Basically, the country likes this program. We should not be privatizing it. We should not be turning it over to insurance companies, because the government has run Medicare so well.

Mr. Speaker, the administrative costs for Medicare: 2 percent. The administrative costs for private insurance: 15 percent. The fact is, Medicare is efficient, it is humane, it excludes nobody, it is available for everybody once you turn 65. It is a program that works. And Republicans, in the name of prescription drug coverage, have set this program to its early death if it continues.

That is why we have to repeal this law. We have to stop it from ultimately taking effect. We have to turn the drug companies and the insurance companies, throw them out of the temple and come back and write this bill the way it ought to be written.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what really bothers me, as the gentleman said, since the seniors are so supportive of Medicare and think it is such a good program, when they see these brochures and these other ads going out that are going to have the official Medicare, or government, seal on them, they are going to naturally think, the government is not going to lie to us. The Medicare administration, department is not going to tell us something that is not true.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) mentioned the subliminal aspect. There is a certain sort of seal of authority that comes from the fact that these brochures and these ads and everything are actually from the government; and that really bothers me too, to think that people are going to think that this is an official government enterprise, educating them about the program when, in effect, it is just distorted, what they are being told.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to reinforce the point that the Republicans never really liked Medicare, but that continues to this day in spades. When we heard one of the leaders on the other side of the aisle, one of the chief negotiators on this bill, or authors of this bill say, To those who say this will end Medicare as we know it, I say, I certainly hope so.

So seniors have to understand who is driving the legislation and where their disrespect for Medicare really lies.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I give credit to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, who wrote this bill, at least he was honest about it. He said, I sure hope it ends Medicare as we know it. Another prominent Republican on the Committee on Rules called Medicare a Soviet-style program. I wish the media would report those kinds of statements, because that is one of the few times that they are going to be honest. But in the Presidential race this year and in races for Congress, we are going to see people look into the camera and speak into the microphone and say, We love Medicare; we are preserving Medicare and protecting Medicare. We know they are not. They are not. They know they are not. That is why they are sending out, at taxpayers' expense, all of these phoney brochures, as the gentleman said, with the seal of government approval to engage in political campaigns with public dollars. That is what they are going to do all year. Seniors need to be warned when they get those mailings that they simply are not true, that they are not telling the truth about Medicare, that they want to undercut Medicare. They are deceptive. They are wrong. They are probably illegal. They should stop.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I think it is so important for us to keep talking about this is because if the Bush administration gets away with this, where is it going to end? In other words, now they are spending $9 million on TV, $22 million total. If they think they can get away with it, they will double it. They will triple it. It just sets a terrible precedent. So that is why I think it is so important. I know the gentlewoman from Illinois started talking about it last week. We have to keep at it with the GAO, with the Inspector General to try to stop this, because if not, where is it going to end? It will just continue on over the next 6 months.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey who I know has some drug companies in his State, and he has shown more courage in speaking out for the right things. The drug companies do good things, there is no doubt about it; but they also abuse the public interests in so many ways. The gentleman from New Jersey has always been there fighting for his constituents, even when many wealthy interests in New Jersey do not quite like what he does. All of us appreciate that.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I appreciate what the gentleman said. The bottom line is we know that the drug companies do a lot of good things; but when they are not doing good things, we have to tell them that it is not good. Otherwise there is no end to it. I think this ad campaign is a perfect example of abuse on the part of the administration.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, at the end of the day, I really put my faith in the senior citizens of this country. I have the pleasure of being the executive director of the Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens working on issues like this; and if I know the seniors, they will sit down, put pencil to paper, and figure out exactly what this bill does or does not do for them. They will know that this campaign is a sham and a scam; and if the other side of the aisle thinks that this is going to carry the day during the elections, I think the senior citizens of this country are going to prove them wrong.

END

Source