Date: 2003-11-19
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentlewoman for offering this motion and for yielding me this time. I just want to say. following up what my colleague. the gentleman from Florida said. and that is that unfortunately. we now see people who are offering themselves as socalled honest brokers who set up thresholds and tests as to whether this would be a good bill for senior citizens. whether or not this would provide the kind of drug benefit that senior citizens should have and that they need to match the cost of the drugs that they now have to pay the prices that they have to pay. we now see that that organization. AARP. was in the bag all of the time. They were not there representing their members. they were not there representing senior citizens. they were there representing themselves as an insurance company. Now. we see that under the provisions of the bill. they stand to do billions of dollars in business. They do about $100 million in business now. selling Medigap insurance policies. but now they want to get into the pharmaceutical business. So they were not an objective observer of this process. They were not there as guardians. they were there as special interests with a special seat at the table. So special that the Republican administration gave them a number of contracts over the last couple of years from the Department of Labor and other agencies in this Federal Government. and now all of a sudden we find out they took a dive on the bill. They did not talk to their Members and say. what should we do. The beltway lobbyists. speaking from their own interests. made a decision to support this bill to the extent now that all day long we have been watching on the news as people have been turning in their membership in AARP. people have been resigning from the organization. I have a letter here from their legislative chairman in Raleigh. North Carolina who says that he is resigning because they were never asked about this. And the fact that they would support a bill as they understand it with the level of benefits. with the privatization of Medicare. they want out. They are resigning. That was supposedly the honest broker that was going betwpen the sides and discussing the merits of this program. This bill is one thing and one thing only: it is to provide protection to the big pharmaceutical industry. This bill does nothing about price. You can have your discount cards. but it is discounted off an inflated price. and it specifically prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating price. When asked about why this is in the provision in a meeting today. one of the authors of the bill said because that is the way big PhRMA wanted it. Well. big PhRMA got their way and Mr. Middle America. they got hosed in this operation. We cannot negotiate like WalMart. We cannot negotiate like Costo. We cannot negotiate like the Veterans Administration. No. They get to set the price and then somehow we are going to give you a discount off an inflated price. So they did not do anything about price there: all"they did was protect the profits of thd pharmaceutical industry. and if the seniors get a benefit. they will be lucky. Out of the first $5.000. they will pay $4.000. That is not the benefit that the AARP should be fighting for.