Prescription Drug Discount Cards

PRESCRIPTION DRUG DISCOUNT CARDS -- (House of Representatives - May 06, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this week enrollment began for the prescription drug discount cards available for the Medicare bill passed last year. For some seniors in my home State of Ohio, this could mean $600 in prescription drug benefits. That sounds great. We want seniors to look into these cards. If they can get help, that is obviously a good thing.

However, the real story about these cards is found in the details. The discount drug cards will further complicate an altogether too confusing process for America's seniors. Instead of implementing a prescription drug benefit under one program, Medicare, which serves 39 million American beneficiaries, the administration fought to create an unnecessarily complex system that diverts money away from benefits and gives it to drug companies and the insurance companies. The drug companies under this legislation, this new law, according to bipartisan studies, will profit $150 billion more than they are already making, and at the same time, this bill gives a $46 billion subsidy, a $46 billion direct subsidy, taxpayer dollars, to the Nation's insurance industry.

That is not any real surprise, considering that President Bush's reelection campaign has received tens of millions of dollars from the drug industry and tens of millions of dollars from the insurance industry.

But this new program will feature 70 cards, 70 choices of private insurance prescription drug cards, by 70 different companies. It is a lot like the multiple HMO system our Republican friends are trying to foist on Medicare beneficiaries.

So here is the deal. Beginning this week, seniors will get notices at their houses. They will get visits, in Ohio, from up to 50 insurance agents, they will get mailings from up to 50 companies, and then they will get to choose these cards.

Now, what we could have is one Medicare card where seniors get a discount negotiated by the government, the way they do it in every other country in the world, as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) said, one card with prices negotiated by the government on behalf of 40 million beneficiaries. But the Bush administration way, in part because one of his best friends and biggest contributors owns one of these card companies, but let us get back to this, the Bush administration is going to give you a choice of 50 cards.

Now, you buy one of these cards. Pick this card. This card perhaps might have a 30 percent discount or a 20 percent discount on Fosamax. This card here might have a 15 percent discount on Zoloft, or this card here might have a 12 percent discount on Celebrex.

Then you choose this card. You can only choose one card. You pay $30 for this card that you get to choose, one of these 50 cards, as these insurance agents come to your home and these mailings come to your home and these fancy brochures come to your home. You choose one card; you pay $30. And then this card company can actually change what drugs are covered by this card any week during those 52 weeks, during that year, or it can change the percent discount.

So you get this card, this one right here, because it has got a pretty good discount for Fosamax and Vioxx and Zoloft, three drugs you are taking, it has a 15 percent discount. But then after you pay the $30, three weeks from now the card company can say, well, we are not going to cover Vioxx anymore, we are going to cover Celebrex, and we are not going to give you a 20 percent discount on Fosamax, we are going to drop it to 10 percent. You have no control over that.

So it is a question of do you want to choose among 50 cards, the way that President Bush and his big contributors in the drug industry, the insurance industry and the insurance discount card industry want, or would you rather have one Medicare card, where the government has negotiated a good discount? That is the way Canada does it, and that is why my constituents in northeast Ohio, why they drive to Canada. Canadian drugs are 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent cheaper, same drugs, same dosage, same manufacturer. So you got one card, or you got a choice of 50 cards.

Now, there is one other part of this bill, Mr. Speaker, that is really pretty incredible. As I mentioned, in this bill we give, taxpayers give, out of our pockets, reach into our pockets, $46 billion direct subsidy from taxpayers to insurance companies.

Think about what we could do, instead of that $46 billion going to the insurance industry, with their huge executive bonuses and stock options and marketing costs and all that, instead of $46 billion going to the insurance industry, if that money went to Medicare beneficiaries for their drug costs, that would be almost $1,200 for every one of the 39.5 million Medicare beneficiaries. So we are giving $46 billion directly to the insurance industry instead of taking care of our seniors.

Again, the question is, why would this possibly happen? How could Congress be this stupid, how could Congress be this greedy, how could Congress be this out of touch, to choose this, over this? It has got a whole lot to do with how much campaign contributions George Bush has gotten and how much campaign contributions my friends on the other side of the aisle have gotten from the drug industry and the insurance industry.

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