June 12, 2002

I commend Families USA and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare for taking the initiative to start this website to fight for fair prescription drug prices and a Medicare drug benefit. I am sure once the website gets underway, it will confirm what many of us in Congress have been hearing from our constituents for some time now -- we must act to address the problem of prescription drug coverage in Medicare.

There are some who say we need to privatize Medicare in order to provide drug coverage to senior citizens and individuals with disabilities. There are some who don’t believe we can afford to spend more than $320 billion on drug coverage over ten years. Neither is true; this is just a matter of priorities.

We have the resources to provide quality drug coverage in Medicare. In 2012 alone, the Republican tax cut would cost $229 billion, more than three times the amount that the Republicans would designate for a Medicare drug benefit in that year.

We don’t need to privatize Medicare in order to provide drug coverage either; privatization is a sure route to disaster. After all, private insurance companies wouldn’t cover the elderly and disabled in 1965; that’s why we enacted Medicare in the first place. The only way privatization proposals -- or vouchers -- save money is to raise costs to those elderly and disabled who want to stay in Medicare fee-for-service. That’s no solution -- that’s a problem.

Senior citizens and individuals with disabilities deserve prescription drug coverage that is as dependable as their health care coverage under Medicare. And they deserve a program that helps pay for prescription drugs, just like the health care plans available to Federal employees and Members of Congress. We can make this happen, but it’s a matter of priorities.

Through this website, www.fairdrugprices.org, our constituents will be able to send a message about what Congress’s priority should be -- adding a real prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

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