Date: 2003-06-23
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I would just like to correct the previous speaker. I was the President pro tern of the Florida Senate. not the Assembly or the House. It was the Florida Senate. When I was a Florida Senator. we had an option that we pushed for and actually achieved. That was. we offered prescription assistance to lowincome seniors. When we were developing the bill. of course we had to live within a budget. We lived within the budget. I canjust tell you that it is almost like I can predict what will happen. We will hear from the other side that it is not enough. For those people who are benefiting. something is better than nothing. The plan started out relatively small and it grew and it expanded. But we were helping the very lowincome seniors in the State of Florida. I rise today to remind my colleagues of the extreme importance of providing a prescription drug benefit for our seniors on Medicare. I cannot emphasize enough What a difference having a prescription drug benefit will make in the lives of our seniors. especially those lowincome seniors. many of whom reside in Florida. I have a large number of seniors who are retired who regularly call my office. who regularly stop me in the grocery store and after church to tell me of the problems that they are having paying for their prescription drugs that. equate to a quality of life. Seniors who rely on Medicare have nothing to help defray the cost of their prescription drugs. the majority of them. Some do have prescription drug programs. but the majority of them have only Social Security in my congressional district and they truly do need the help that a good prescription drug bill will provide. Seniors covered by Medicare right now are probably the select few who are paying retail prices for their prescription drugs. You and I might go to the pharmacy and pay either a small copay or a very small fraction of the cost of our drugs. We would go ballistic if a pharmacist told us that the prescription that we needed. quote. wasnt covered. Well. guess what? Seniors face this every single day. A constituent called just as I was leaving the office this morning and told me how she has to pay $7.50 per pill for just one of her prescriptions. For people on a fixed income or anyone. for that matter. that is an enormously expensive drug. Yet this is a prescription drug. costly as it is. that my constituent needs to stay alive. Mr. Speaker. I am new to this body. I have not been around for years of debate on this issue in this House. I was not here for the two previous sessions where there was a successful vote to bring a prescription drug benefit to our seniors. Maybe that makes me idealistic. maybe less jaded. whatever you want to call it. But I just cannot envision going home and telling my constituents. justifying to them. or trying to justify to them why Congress cannot give them a prescription drug benefit. I hope that I never have to try to justify that. The previous occupant of the congressional seat from Floridas Fifth District voted against the prescription drug bill that was there in 2002. I made a commitment early on that I would vote for a prescription drug bill. The prescription drug bill that has been worked through two committees. both Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce. is coming along very well. It is a bill that I have some reservations about. but the reservations are mainly about the cost. But we should begin a program and we should actually probably tie that program to the $400 billion that we have appropriated to make sure that we stay within the budget guidelines. Mr. Speaker. I again ask the Members of this House to join me in voting for the prescription drug bill that will be before us later on this week. It is important. I think. not just for a State like Florida where there are many senior citizens. I have the fourth highest senior population in this whole Congress. but it is important to every senior who struggles to meet those prescription drug costs.