Date: 2004-05-04
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for yielding. Coming from Florida. we obviously have a large number of seniors. and particularly in my district. we do not have wealthy seniors. The interim prescription drug card that is available. that began to become available yesterday. is a great benefit for so many of my constituents. A lot of times there is a great fear of the unknown. and I think it is exactly what happened. I think that some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the Democrat Party had so frightened seniors that these cards were not going to be sufficient and that sufficient savings were not going to take place. I have heard very positive comments from seniors in my district that the Web site is easy to navigate on. I actually. like you. also called Medicare because I wanted to make sure that there was not a big backlog or a long waiting period before you got a real person on the line. and that absolutely is not the fact. It is a very efficient system. There are operators standing by. and that number again is 1 800 MEDICARE. and you simply tell them your ZIP code and the number of prescriptions that you are taking now. and they will help you to navigate through which card is best for you. I think it is important that Americans realize that. first of all. this is a voluntary prescription drug plan. It is not mandatory. When one looks at the prescription drug cards. certainly it is not a onesizefitsall scenario. nor should it be. Many people in my district have Tricare for life and/or they have retirement benefits from when they were employed. and they are happy with those. We want them to keep them. That is very important. I know that I worked with the two gentlemen here this evening. one from Georgia and the other from New Mexico. to make sure that we encouraged employers to continue to offer those benefits. How do we encourage them. with a taxfree subsidy. I believe that the number of employers who will stop health care coverage to retirees. that the number of those that will stop will severely dwindle. I recently had a constituent come to me. and I am originally from New York. He had worked for a major power company there. He was so afraid that they were going to drop their coverage. Well. I called the power company for him as I told him I would do. and asked them exactly what their plans were. and explained the 28cent subsidy tax free that they will receive. They have looked at the taxfree subsidy. they have no intention of dropping their coverage. and the constituent is very happy to know that the company that he had spent well over 35 years working for is going to continue the retiree coverage. As we worked on this bill. I know to many of us that was a very important factor. I also visited the Web site. and here are a few examples of what I found on the Web site. For example. Lipitor. a common drug used to curb high cholesterol. according to the Medicare Web site. 17 Medicare discount cards are available to constituents living in. for example. Brooksville in my district. who take Lipitor. Most of the cards are accepted at over 8 different pharmacies within a 10mile radius. Today. for example. seniors living in Dade City. Florida. are paying up to $87 for a 30day supply of Lipitor. However. beginning in June. some of the cards will offer a 30day supply for as low as $67. Many of the cards have no enrollment fee. That is a savings of $20 a month. Another very common drug is Zyrtec. which is taken for allergies. Seniors in Crystal River are paying $86. According to the Medicare.gov line. one prescription discount card will only charge $58 a month for Zyrtec with no enrollment fee. and that means a $28 a month savings. There are many other examples of some of the other prescription drugs that also have savings. and I added some of them up. For example. Zyrtec. Lipitor. and Prevacid. which is used for acid reflux disease. the Prevacid. they actually will save $50 a month on by using the prescription drug cards. When we add all of this up. that is a savings of $350 a year. and that is if they are not low income. It is $350 this year. and $700 in 2005. and that is just for one prescription. If a senior took all three of these. they would save almost $600 this year. When you combine 2004 with 2005. it would be $1.100. That is why I absolutely cannot understand why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are supposed to be so concerned about the poor in our Nation have absolutely no concept of the benefits that this prescription drug bill will bring to every constituent. As I went around in my district when we were off during April. I had many town hall meetings. and there were some things I said to people who said I do not need the plan. I have a great plan or I am on Tricare. I am covered for life. I am fine. no thank you. I said to them. well. for your friends and neighbors or maybe later in life you decide this is a good plan for you. but there are some great benefits in there for those on Medicare. For example. they will have a Welcome to Medicare physical exam that never before has been available. There was scheduled by a previous Congress. not one that any of the three of us belonged to. but there was scheduled to be a Medicare home health copay. That copay for home health care. which is so necessary when someone comes out of a hospital setting. and they are coming out of hospitals a whole lot sooner now. and they go to the home. and having home health care is such a blessing because it helps them to be in their home where they will recuperate better and also have medical supervision. There was a copay scheduled to be to go into effect. The copay scheduled has been scrapped by the Medicare Modernization Act. Additionally. there was a $1.500 physical therapy. occupational therapy and speech therapy cap. a total of $1.500 a year for all the therapies. If you broke your wrist. $1.500 worth of therapy might be okay. but Lord. if you have a stroke. you need all three of those therapies. You need physical. occupational and speech therapy. and $1.500 was just the tip of the iceberg for the needs of those who had had a stroke. We eliminated that very arbitrary and cruel $1.500 therapy cap which another session of Congress had imposed. Additionally. doctor reimbursement. Physician reimbursement was scheduled to be cut by 4.5 percent. I was hearing. as were many of my colleagues in Congress. hearing that doctors were going to withdraw from Medicare because they had an unusual phenomenon of their Medicare reimbursement was going down and their expenses were going up. certainly including malpractice insurance. Those two storms. if you will. of rising costs and lower reimbursement were a problem on the horizon that this bill took care of. We did not cut physician reimbursement. we actually increased it by 1.5 percent so physicians are staying in the Medicare program. With so many seniors in Florida. it is so important that we have adequate physicians. and it is funny the gentleman should mention the HMOs. In my area. so many of my constituents love HMOs. I actually was at an event last night in Lake County. and she said to me. What are you going to do to get some HMOs here? They had lived in another county that had a lot of HMOs. and she really appreciated HMOs and wanted to know when we were going to have an HMO in Lake County. I explained that is not something that the government mandates. but here is an example of somebody who is very happy with an HMO. and I have heard that from many of my constituents. But for those who live in counties where HMOs are. this bill also increased the reimbursement to HMOs and mandated that they either increase the benefits to those subscribers who are in HMOs or that they cut the costs. In my area. in the Tampa Bay area. we have a variety. Some added services. and others cut the monthly subscription fee. So many people are very glad that the HMOs are being adequately reimbursed in this bill for those who love the HMO concept.