I am pleased to be here today to join with my Democratic colleagues in introducing a real prescription drug benefit bill, the "Medicare Rx Drug Benefit and Discount Act."

Let me briefly explain our bill. Unlike the bill introduced by our Republican colleagues, our bill can be simply explained, because it is built on a simple, known, and effective model – Medicare itself.

Just like seniors pay a voluntary premium for Part B medical costs like doctor visits, our bill provides for a voluntary Part D drug premium of $25 per month. For that, the Government will pay 80% of drug costs after a $100 deductible. And no senior will have to pay more than $2,000 in costs per year.

These are real numbers, not estimates. The benefits and the $25 monthly premium are specified on page 1 of the bill. Unfortunately, there are no such guarantees in the Republican bill.

On top of that, we will be arming seniors with the most potent protection from soaring drug costs. Forty million seniors banded together under the buying power of Medicare, we can begin to use the necessary bargaining power to rein in high drug prices.

This is not price controls; it is competition and bargaining. We saw that the Government was effective in negotiating a competitive price for the prescription drug Cipro during the anthrax outbreak. Why shouldn’t we do the same for other life saving drugs for seniors?

In contrast to our simple and effective prescription drug benefit, the Republican bill is a complex scheme that would make Rube Goldberg blush. In fact, it is not a drug benefit at all. It is a host of subsidies to private insurers in the hope that they will offer a drug-only benefit to seniors. Will they? Time and again they have told us "no."

Why would the Republicans put forward such a model? Well, quite simply they have a larger agenda – they want to privatize all of Medicare, and this is just another step. That is the only reason why seniors are not even given a choice of getting the benefit through their traditional Medicare provider.

And why don’t they endorse our plan? Our plan is simple; it is comprehensive; it is what seniors want. They have raised just one issue: they say it costs too much. Well, I can tell you that we can afford it. It is just a matter of priorities.

To put the costs in perspective, we are told that our bill may cost $500 billion dollars more than the Republican proposal over 10 years. Well, just a couple of weeks ago our Republican colleagues voted for a bill to make permanent the repeal of the estate tax on the wealthiest people in this country. In the second decade when that permanent repeal kicks in, it will cost the U.S. Treasury $750 billion.

So, yes, this substitute is expensive. Seniors will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs over the next decade. That is expensive. But we can do something about it. It is a matter of choices.

In short, our bill provides a Meaningful benefit. We do it through Medicare. And we Moderate drug costs.

The Republican bill is all about Privatization. It is also about Politics, and inoculating themselves on Election Day by saying they have a Plan for prescription drugs.

Congress will soon have an opportunity to make those choices. It should choose our seniors.