Tom Allen

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate the gentleman's leadership in pursuing this issue as long and as hard as he has. One of the things I am reflecting on today is I can no longer count the number of times that the gentleman from Texas, the gentlewoman from Michigan, the gentleman from New Jersey and I, and others on the Democratic side, have been down here pounding away on this issue trying to build enough support around the country and in this House to get some action. I think back to the first study that was done in my district in Maine in July of 1998, which showed that seniors, on average, pay twice as much for their medication as the drug companies' best customers, the big hospitals, the HMOs and the Federal Government itself, through Medicaid or through the VA. We have been back over and over again. Most recently, on April 26, a number of us did another study, held events around the country, because we know that the only way we can break through the clutter of all the other news and all of the things that Americans have going on in their lives to get this message home is to do coordinated events and try to get the message home. What I did in Maine was take another look at this problem of price discrimination. What I did was to do a breast cancer study, to look at the 5 drugs that are most commonly prescribed in Maine to deal with women, to help women who have breast cancer. We have done the study that shows seniors pay twice as much as the drug companies' best customers; we have done the study that shows that Mainers pay 72 percent more than Canadians and 102 percent more than Mexicans for the same drug in the same quantity from the same manufacturer, and we did the animal study that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) was referring to which shows that when drugs are sold to pharmacies for human use, the charge is 151 percent more than when the same drug is sold to veterinarians for animal use. Why is this? Well, basically, it is simple. The pharmaceutical industry charges what the market will bear. They squeeze as much as they can out of the people that they are selling prescription drugs to, and the people in the largest health care plan in the country, which is called Medicare, those people, 37 percent of whom have no coverage for their prescription drugs, they pay the highest prices in the world. So in short, basically, it is very simple: the most profitable industry in the country charges the highest prices in the world to Americans who can least afford to pay those prices, including many of our seniors; also, as the breast cancer study showed, including women who have breast cancer. What we found is that those women who do not have health insurance for their medication pay 102 percent to 106 percent more than the drug companies' best customers for those breast cancer medications. For example, Tamoxifen, the most frequently prescribed breast cancer medication, costs uninsured Maine women 53 to 72 percent more than the drug companies' best customers. That comes to between $1,800 and $2,500 more each year. Bristol-Myers Squibb charges its favored customers $39.60 for a 1-month supply of its hormone therapy medication, Megase. The same 1-month supply costs an uninsured Maine woman $174.28. That is a 340 percent markup. It is also an additional $1,600 each year that she will have to pay out of her own pocket. In 1960, 1 in 14 American women were at risk of developing breast cancer. Today, that same number is 1 in 8 American women. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer for American women. In 1997, the National Breast Cancer Coalition estimated that 2.6 million American women were living with breast cancer: 1.6 million who had been diagnosed and 1 million who did not know they have the disease. Now, what we found is that uninsured Maine women who do not have coverage for their breast cancer medication are basically facing a pharmaceutical industry which has enormous, enormous power. Our friend and colleague, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has found that a month's supply of Tamoxifen that costs an uninsured Maine woman between $88.50 a month and $99.50 a month can be purchased in Canada for $12.80. This is a national scandal, and it needs to end. Now, we are going to enter into a period here where we have a debate over competing health care plans. But basically, there is a fundamental difference between what we Democrats are proposing and what the Republicans are proposing. What we are saying is simple. We have to drive down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors who simply cannot afford to pay for their medication. There is no reason why Medicare should not do what United and Aetna and Cigna and the Blue Cross plans do. They negotiate, they negotiate lower prescription drug prices for their beneficiaries. Why should Medicare not do the same? That is basically what my legislation does, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act. But a discount is not enough. We also need a benefit. A benefit under Medicare that will help people pay for their prescription drugs, because this will not help people who still cannot afford the high cost of their medication. So we need both approaches. What we have seen from the Republican side is basically this: proposals that first protect the profits of the industry, and only second, try to help America's seniors. Why do I say that? The Republican plans emerging from the other body and, also here, basically involve a subsidy to seniors to buy private health insurance for prescription drugs. Well, there are two problems with that. There is no way to hold down costs if we are going to rely on private prescription drug insurance. They are not able to do it internationally, and they are not going to be able to do it here. But there is a second more fundamental problem. The Health Insurance Association of America has made it very clear that the industry will not provide stand-alone prescription drug insurance for seniors. Why? Because in the words of the executive director, it is like providing insurance for haircuts. Everybody is a claimant. We have to have some pressure on price. Someone has to sit across the table from the pharmaceutical industry and negotiate lower prices. A plan that does not do that is a plan that is not going to make drugs affordable both for seniors and for the taxpayer. I mean, let us face it. If we are going to spend money, Federal money for a benefit, we want to make sure we are getting a good deal for the taxpayer. That is what Democrats are standing for, and that is not what would happen under the Republican proposals. Let us step back and look at this other problem. If the private health insurance industry is not going to provide stand-alone prescription drug coverage, what are we talking about? What we are talking about is an illusion, cover, a program that is never going to take effect in the real world. That is not what seniors need. Seniors need help; they need it now. Mr. Speaker, spending on prescription drugs goes up 15 to 18 percent every year. If you think this problem is bad today, it is going to be much worse in just one year. And so we need to enact legislation this year that provides a discount, that provides a benefit, that allows the Federal Government to negotiate lower prices, to make sure we have some control over some pressure on price of the pharmaceutical industry. If we do not do that, basically we will have one of those proposals that in the real world will not work, that is designed to help the pharmaceutical industry before it really helps seniors. And I think it is the wrong way to go. Clearly, the Democrats, the folks on this side of the aisle, believe that as well. Mr. Speaker, I notice our friend and colleague, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), has come here; and I can say no one in this caucus has done more for the cause of reducing prescription drug prices for seniors than the gentleman from Arkansas, and I just want this chance to thank him for that.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I want to thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue. This is something that she and I have been working on now for, well, pretty close to 2 years, pretty close to 2 years, trying to bring the stories of these people, seniors all across this country and others who do not have prescription drug insurance, to the attention of this Congress. Although the issue is rising in terms of its coverage around the country, this Congress has yet to act. I thought what I would do is talk about a few stories. A few of the stories were the stories that basically I heard when I first began, and they were simple stories, such as a retired firefighter in Sanford, Maine, standing up and telling me I spend $200 a month now on my prescription medication. My doctor just told me I need another prescription. It costs $100 a month, and I am not going to take it, because he could not possibly afford it. Or the woman who wrote to me in July of 1998, the first of many, with a long list of her prescription drugs. She said in her letter here is a list of the medications that my husband and I are supposed to take. The bottom line was $650. She said here is a copy of our two Social Security checks, which is all the monthly income we have. The bottom line was $1,350. That math does not work. You cannot have people who are taking in $1,300 a month total income, expected to spend $650 of that for prescription drugs alone. They have got rent, food, heat, and utilities; and it does not work. I have had women write to me and say I do not want my husband to know, but I am not taking my prescription medication because he is sicker than I am and we cannot both afford to take our medication. It should not be like that in this country, and there is no reason why it should, but the truth is that 37 percent of all seniors have no coverage at all for prescription medication. Another 16 percent are in these wonderful HMOs that were supposed to provide free prescription drug coverage, and every year the benefits go down, the cap goes down, the premiums go up, and people are left paying more and more of their prescription coverage out of their own pockets. About 8 percent of people have Medigap prescription drug coverage, but often the cap is about $1,000 a year. That does not do much good for a lot of seniors in this country, who have several thousand dollars of prescription drug expenses in any one year. Let me tell you about what we did in my district. I sent out a newsletter devoted entirely to health care. It dealt with veterans' care; it dealt with small businesses who were having trouble paying their premiums. It dealt with the veterans' health care, it dealt with seniors, it dealt with prescription drugs. We got back 5,269 respondents, actually somewhat more than that. But we had a question in a questionnaire attached to this newsletter, and the question was, one of them, do you or your family member take a prescription drug on a regular basis? 4,089 people said yes. Of those 4,089, 1,726 said yes to the question do you have any difficulty paying for the drugs you or your family need? The truth of the matter is, people cannot do it. We got back comments in response to those questionnaires. Here is one. A woman writes, ``Dear Mr. Allen, do I need help. My Social Security check is $736 a month. My medication is $335 to $350 a month. My Blue Cross, the supplemental insurance, is $106 a month.'' So she did the math. $736 minus $106 for Blue Cross, minus the $350 for medication, left her $280 to live on. And she said ``my husband passed away last July.'' Another woman wrote, ``I am a site manager here at an elderly housing project. I have approximately 110 tenants. We are in low-income housing. It is a crime to see how many people forego their groceries to buy a prescription or forego the prescription so they can eat. Several of my folks here do not have any supplemental insurance and won't go for Medicaid, as they think it is welfare. ``Last March, my husband had an aneurism and had to have surgery. He survived it and was given 2 prescriptions. When I got to the pharmacy I found they came to $300. Needless to say, I didn't have that kind of money. I called his doctor. My doctor is very kind and gives me samples when he can. Otherwise, I would not have them, as we just don't have the financial income to cover everything.'' Another woman writes, ``Since I am self-employed, I cannot afford the expensive health plans, and since I am a diabetic, I should have medication, but I cannot afford medication because that is too expensive. I can't even afford the doctor because they are also too expensive. You have to see a doctor to get the medication. Hopefully there is an answer for me and people like me. I have a question: How can Canada sell the same medication for half the price? They must be doing something right.'' One more story. ``At age 64,'' age 64, remember this, just before Medicare, ``at age 64 my wife is severely disabled by rheumatoid arthritis and is heavily reliant on at least 5 expensive prescription drugs. Over the past 3 years her total costs for those drugs has averaged just over $7,500, of which I have paid just over $2,000 out- of-pocket each year. I am fortunate to be able to cover that cost without sacrifice, but I am very concerned about what our situation will be when my wife turns 65, is forced to give up the private major medical policy which I now buy for her, and has to rely on Medicare and Medigap.'' When she is over 65, she is on Medicare and she no longer has outpatient prescription drug coverage, and the Medigap policies that I mentioned earlier typically have caps of $1,000, $1,200, or, at most, $1,500. The truth is, the most profitable industry in the country is charging the highest prices in the world to people in this country who do not have health insurance that covers their prescription drugs. Twelve percent of the population is seniors. They buy 33 percent of prescription drugs. In my State of Maine, because there is no significant amount of managed care, I can tell you that just about 50 percent of the seniors in Maine have no coverage at all for their prescription medication, no coverage at all, and we know that over 80 percent of seniors take some prescription drugs, 83, 85 percent, something like that. So they are all taking prescription drugs. In this context, what we have done on the Democratic side of the aisle is we have a plan, the President's plan for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, a start to help cover prescription medications for seniors who do not have the money to afford it right now. We also have a bill that I have offered, and the gentlewoman has been a cosponsor from the beginning, which would provide a discount. If there are people who think a Medicare prescription drug benefit is too expensive for us now, we can do a discount, no new bureaucracy, no significant Federal expense, but a discount of up to 40 percent in the prices that seniors pay today for their prescription medications. The Republicans in this House will not adopt either proposal, will not bring either proposal to the floor. What we hear this week is they are about to bring a proposal forward that is great for the pharmaceutical industry, but it is a disaster for seniors, because it relies on private insurance. I would ask my friends on the Republican side of the aisle, why is it so difficult to strengthen Medicare? Why is it so difficult to update Medicare and add a prescription drug benefit? The private sector plans that are out there have prescription drug benefits: Aetna, Signa, United. The major private health care plans around this country have prescription drug benefits. Why not Medicare? Is it that hard? The answer is, it is not that hard. We could do it, and we could do it now. We could give relief to the seniors who have been writing me, who have been writing the gentlewoman, who have been talking to Democrats all across this country. It is a national scandal that we do not do something about it, and we must before we adjourn this fall. I just want to say to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) how much I appreciate the gentlewoman's determination, her persistence, her leadership on this issue. She is really doing us all proud. I thank the gentlewoman very much.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, when opponents of campaign finance reform opposed the Shays-Meehan reform bill last year, their alternative was disclose, disclose, disclose; but when asked to require disclosure on section 527 stealth political groups, Republicans cried conceal, conceal, conceal. During debate on the Shays-Meehan reform bill last fall, the majority whip, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), said on this House floor, ``What reform can restore accountability more than an open book?'' Last week, the Committee on Ways and Means had a chance to open the books on the shadowy political organizations being set up under section 527 of the Tax Code, but every Republican on the committee voted to keep the books closed on these stealth groups that have reportedly become a favorite tool of the majority whip, according to press accounts. Every Democrat on the committee voted to open the books. When it comes to campaign finance disclosure, it is time for the Republican leadership to do what they say they believe.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, Blame Canada, Blame Canada. It is the Oscar- nominated song from the movie South Park, Blame Canada, Blame Canada. It is also the latest defensive ad campaign by the pharmaceutical industry's front group, the so-called Citizens for Better Medicare. Frankly, both belong in the garbage. In the movie, the mothers of South Park are revolted by the dirty words their children learn at the movies but instead of taking responsibility themselves, they blame Canada. In the ads, the drug industry tries to divert attention from its discriminatory pricing practices but instead of taking responsibility themselves, they blame Canada. The pharmaceutical industry ads are running in the northern border States and elsewhere in an effort to convince consumers that the Canadian health care system is bad because prescription drugs are cheaper for Canadian seniors than they are for American seniors. So let me thank the pharmaceutical industry for making the point that they charge Canadian seniors far less than they charge American seniors for the same drugs from the same manufacturers in the same quantities. It is what we have been saying all along. Does the innovation of Canadian pharmaceutical companies suffer under the Canadian system? No. Let me read just a few statements. Here is a statement, and I quote, in the last 10 years the rate of growth in R&D spending by Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada, member companies, has almost doubled that of the United States. That is a statement put out on March 2, 1999, a press release from the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada. In June of 1999, the same organization talked about the massive research efforts taking place across Canada, and in 1998, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada's innovative pharmaceutical companies funded an estimated $900 million in medical research and development. Since 1987 R&D spending by the PMAC member companies have grown by almost 700 percent, almost twice the growth rate of the United States in the same period of time. Yet, the pharmaceutical industry is trying to tell people in the United States that R&D will not happen in Canada because they are not earning enough money up there. Yesterday my office received a call from the Canadian Embassy, and the Canadians are perplexed because they do not understand why U.S. companies are running TV ads trashing the Canadian health care system. Imagine what the Canadians think. The most profitable industry in the country is upset that they are not able to charge as much in Canada for prescription drugs and engage in the same price discrimination in Canada as they do in the United States. Speaking of profits, I urge every Member to check out the latest Fortune 500 list which shows once again that the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in the country, number one in return on revenues at 18.6 percent, number one in return on assets at 16.5 percent, and number one in return on equity at 35.8 percent. One cannot do any better than that. Even with all the attention on their price discrimination against seniors, the pharmaceutical industry continues to be the most profitable industry in the country, charging the highest prices in the world to people who can least afford it, our seniors who do not have any prescription drug coverage on Medicare. Studies show that seniors in this country pay 72 percent on average more than Canadians. We pay 102 percent more than Mexicans for the same drugs in the same quantity from the same manufacturer. Why do seniors have to choose between food and medicine? Industry says, blame Canada. Why do seniors have to cut their pills in half in order to take them? The industry says, blame Canada. Why do seniors have to go across the border to buy affordable prescription drugs? The industry says, blame Canada. Democrats in the House have two approaches. We have legislation to establish a Medicare prescription drug benefit to cover all seniors on Medicare. We have legislation which I have introduced which would provide a discount for all Medicare beneficiaries in the costs of their prescription drugs. We have legislation from the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) to make sure that drugs that are sold in Canada can be brought into this country and sold to American seniors at reduced prices. Our seniors continue to suffer from price discrimination. They demand a Medicare prescription drug benefit that is universal, meaningful and affordable but instead of bringing equality to its pricing structure all the drug industry can come up with is Blame Canada, Blame Canada.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, last week, House Republicans held a press conference to announce that their budget would include $40 billion to help low-income elderly pay for their prescription drugs. Today the House Republicans present their budget. But they have already abandoned last week's $40 billion promise. The Republican budget contains no funds specifically reserved for a prescription drug benefit. Instead, the resolution allows the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to allocate up to $40 billion of the non-Social Security surplus if a bill that reforms Medicare also provides coverage for prescription drugs. This is a separate reserve fund. If they did not create a separate reserve fund, their budget would have a deficit. Furthermore, their prescription drug reserve is contingent upon a plan to reform the entire Medicare program by turning it over to HMOs. That is a nonstarter. In short, to make room for huge tax cuts for the wealthy, they have abandoned seniors who are trying to stretch their Social Security checks and modest pensions to cover both food and medicine. It is wrong, and this budget should be rejected. Our seniors do not need empty promises. They need relief now. They are 12 percent of the population, but they use one-third of all prescription drugs. We have done studies which show that, on average, seniors pay twice as much for their medications as the drug companies' best customers, the HMOs, the hospitals, and the Federal Government. They pay more than consumers in Canada or Mexico or anywhere else in the world. Seniors need action now. They do not get it in the Republican budget. They need a universal prescription drug benefit under Medicare and an end to pharmaceutical company price discrimination. The Democratic budget has $40 billion committed to those goals, and the Republican budget does not.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. The bill's title is not accurate. Despite all the talk on the other side about small property owners, the bill should be called the fast track for developers act. This bill allows for any case involving a takings claim to be brought into Federal court, bypassing State and local processes. As an attorney practicing law for 19 years, it was my experience that most small-land owners do not rush to get into Federal court, but many large developers do. It was also my experience that takings claims, constitutional claims, even though frivolous, even though extraordinarily weak, will be tacked on it a great many local land institutes. That is why it seems to me that the passage of this bill will allow developers to put excessive pressure on local zoning boards and councils. I speak with some experience. I was a city councilor in Portland for 6 years and the mayor of the city. In Portland, we have appropriate and sound local zoning procedures and practices. In this House, we should help local governments plan for smart growth and not tie their hands by federalizing every local land dispute in which a property owner claims his property is being taken without compensation. My Republican colleagues argue that local school boards know better than Washington, and I agree. But when it comes to land use, they say that Federal courts, not local zoning boards, are the best way to resolve local land disputes. Mr. Chairman, this bill is opposed by every organization, almost every organization representing State, county, and municipal governments. It is opposed by State Attorneys General, State Chief Justices, and the U.S. Judicial Conference. This bill is a serious affront to the principle of federalism. I urge a ``no'' vote on this so-called takings bill that diminishes local control and empowers large developers.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, we need to reject this Republican tax plan. Despite its title, this is no small business tax cut. Moreover, this proposal would cut taxes before we even have the outlines of a budget resolution. In reality with this bill, the top one percent of taxpayers will get an average tax cut of $6,000 and the top one percent of taxpayers of those earning over $319,000 a year. The lower 60 percent get an average of $4 each, $4, not even enough to buy a movie ticket. For 60 percent of the public, this is no tax cut at all. Now, we are used to seeing Republican tax plans that favor the wealthy, but this one has to set a record. Seventy-three percent of the benefits go to the wealthiest one percent in this country. Moreover, this bill is premature. We have not passed a budget resolution, but the Republicans are coming in with yet another huge tax cut. We have done nothing in this House to secure the solvency of Social Security, nothing to protect the future of Medicare, nothing to provide prescription drug coverage for seniors, and nothing to pay down the national debt. This bill jeopardizes our ability to achieve any of these goals. We should reject this misleading, irresponsible Republican tax plan. And I have to say, simple fairness would require that we be given a chance to vote on the Rangel alternative Democratic plan, which was a real small business tax cut and which would not disrupt our ability to achieve other important national priorities.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of repeal of the earnings limit for Social Security recipients between 65 and 70 years of age. When I talk to employers in Maine, many cannot find all the employees that they need. Many seniors between 65 and 70 want to work but are discouraged from doing so by the Social Security earnings limit. This bill will help seniors who want to work and employers who want to hire them. This bill is also an example of what Republicans and Democrats can do when we bring to the floor legislation on which we can agree. In 1998, I voted for a Democratic proposal to lift the earnings limit, but I pointed out at that time that the competing 1998 Republican plan included tax cuts that did not protect Social Security surpluses. That was the wrong approach and I opposed it. This bill is the right approach, and I am proud to support it.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. If the gentleman would yield for a moment, what we are doing in Maine is interesting and exciting. The 2002 elections will be the first where we have what we call the Clean Elections. The bill has been upheld by the court. Candidates for the State legislature and candidates for Governor can opt, can choose, to be a Clean Elections candidate. If they get the requisite number of signatures and a certain number of $5 contributions, that is all, $5 contributions, they will qualify for public financing. I hope and pray that this system will be one way to reduce the influence of money in politics. I think it is a very interesting experiment, and I hope in time other States will follow Maine's lead.

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for putting together this special order. This has been an issue that you and I and others have been working on since we first came to Congress. We started, as you mentioned, with that freshman bipartisan task force, six Republicans and six Democrats; and over a period of several months, we negotiated out a bill that would ban soft money and make other changes in this system. But it would get the biggest of the big money out of politics, those soft money contributions to the national parties from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions. As my colleagues will recall, in 1998, the freshmen on both sides of the aisle helped to drive that issue hard enough so the Republican leadership had to bring it up. And when it finally came up, we had a debate over several weeks and finally at last, the freshman bill did not pass but the Shays-Meehan bill did pass in 1998 and then, of course, we passed it again last year. But in 1998, if you add together those Members who voted for the freshman soft money ban with those Members who voted for the Shays-Meehan bill, some 352 Members, or 81 percent of the House, voted to ban soft money. Unfortunately, that bill did not make it through the Senate in the 105th Congress; and so last year, in September, we did it again. In the House, we passed the Shays-Meehan bill in strong bipartisan fashion by a margin of 252-177. But to date, the other body, Members in the other body have blocked campaign finance reform from being passed. Now, today, Granny D, Doris Haddock, who walked from California to the steps of the Capitol in Washington, arrived in her 14-month campaign to publicize this issue and urge this Congress to act. I went down to Pennsylvania Avenue and walked with her and hundreds of others up the last stretch to get to the Capitol. You have to admire her. When she made this commitment, made this decision, she was 88 years old. She trained for this activity to make sure that she was going to be able to walk 10 miles a day carrying a 25-pound pack on her back, and she did it. She got publicity all across this country. That kind of public determination, that kind of perseverance is what we need to help create the public energy to pass campaign finance reform in the other body. We need a law. We need a bill that will get rid of soft money once and for all. Let me just say a word about that. The so-called hard money contributions are the contributions that are limited, that go directly to campaigns, directly to individual candidates. But that system of limits is completely undermined if wealthy individuals, corporations, and labor unions can give unlimited amounts of money to the national parties, which can then be used to run TV ads in the districts of individual Members. So this system does not work; these rules do not work anymore. Last year I warned that a failure to pass campaign finance reform would unleash a deluge of soft money contributions in this 2000 cycle, and, unfortunately, it has come true. The national political party committees raised a record $107 million in soft money contributions during the 1999 calendar year. That is 81 percent more than the $59 million they raised during the last comparable presidential election period in 1995. Now, the opponents, the opponents, the big money coalition which tries to call itself the Free Speech Coalition, are always trying to argue that campaign finance reform's reasonable limitations on what individuals can give is a violation of the First Amendment, and, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) just pointed out, not true. The Supreme Court, in Nixon versus Shrink Missouri Government PAC, reaffirmed the constitutionality of contribution limits. It reaffirmed its view that the Government has a compelling interest in enacting contribution limits in order to protect the integrity of our democratic system. The Court reaffirmed that large donations can corrupt this process or create the appearance of corruption. It is time to change this system. We have gone too far, allowing unlimited contributions to the national parties. This has been a position almost universally supported on the Democratic side of the aisle. Fortunately, we have had enough Republicans in the House who will come over and support campaign finance reform to achieve victory here. But victory here is not enough, because victory in the House alone does not make a law. We need to have enough public support, enough public pressure, to get this through the Senate. I believe that when you look at what Granny D has accomplished, when you look at the Supreme Court opinion in Nixon versus Shrink Missouri Government PAC, that we are seeing a crescendo of support for campaign finance reform. It is incumbent upon all of us here to keep working on this issue, to keep talking about this issue, to keep reminding the voters that until we get campaign finance reform, we cannot, we cannot trust this system to produce the kind of results that we expect a democratic system to produce. There is too much money in politics; there is too much big money in this system, and we have to get the biggest of the big money out of this system so that the people can have some confidence again that we are doing the public's business, and not the business of our largest contributors. We still have the opportunity, we have most of a year, to enact real campaign finance reform this year and to stop the flow of big money, of soft money, to the national parties. We need bipartisan support in order to do that; we need support on both the House and the Senate side in order to do that. I think this is the year. This is an important day. Granny D has made it an important day. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his leadership on this issue, for helping to push this issue, and for holding this special order tonight.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, from Maine to California, seniors cannot afford to buy the medicines that their doctors tell them they have to take. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry engages in widespread price discrimination against seniors. Seniors pay twice as much as the drug companies' best customers. They pay 70 percent more than Canadians and 100 percent more than Mexicans. They are discriminated against. In short, the most profitable industry in the country is charging the highest prices in the world to people who can least afford it. Today, we Democrats are signing a discharge petition to bring two bills to the floor, one bill to give all seniors a discount and the second bill to provide universal prescription drug coverage on Medicare. It is time to act. We should act now, sign the discharge petition and give our seniors some relief.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Nevada very much. I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), who with the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) and me is a co-chair of the Prescription Drug Task Force. No one has worked longer or harder on this issue to try to get some fairness for seniors, trying to stop price discrimination and get to a Medicare benefit. I thank the gentleman for being here tonight.

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentlewoman from California for her leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the other gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner). He summarized this issue very, very well. If I could just add one other point. The situation gets worse year by year. If we think the situation is bad now, spending on prescription drugs is going up 15 to 18 percent year after year after year. The problem on average will be 15 to 18 percent more a year from now than it is today. Think about those seniors that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) was talking about. They are a part of the biggest health care plan in the country. It is called Medicare. The way the law works now, it is okay for the Veterans Administration to get a discount. It is okay for the medicaid program to get a discount. It is okay for big HMOs and hospitals to get a discount, but it is not okay for people who are Medicare beneficiaries, who have worked hard all their lives, played by the rules, now they are in a Federal health care plan called Medicare and they cannot get a discount under existing law. That is what we are trying to do, trying to stop price discrimination and provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that will cover all Medicare beneficiaries. I want now to turn to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall). He, too, has been the object of attack from the pharmaceutical companies. I have to say that I hope that conveys to the constituents in his district how hard he has been working on this issue that they would single him out for attack. We are very pleased to have the gentleman here tonight and I yield some time to him.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall) for all his good work on this issue. I would like now to turn to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows). The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) may be a freshman, but he has been an early and enthusiastic supporter and is now the author of the discharge petition on H.R. 664, which all of us have been working on so hard. I am just very pleased that the gentleman is going to be the sponsor of this discharge petition on the bill; and I trust that a very large group from this caucus, the Democratic Caucus, will come in tomorrow and sign that discharge petition and try to get this bill to the floor over the opposition of the Republican leadership; because the fact remains, as urgent as this problem is, we do not have one single Republican as a cosponsor of H.R. 664, and there is absolutely no indication that the leadership would bring this bill to the floor or bring to the floor a bill that would provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit for all Medicare beneficiaries.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, those stories are legend. I have these letters from women who say I do not want my husband to know, but I am not taking my medication, because he is sicker than I am, and we cannot both afford to take the medications that our doctors tell us we have to take. It is a national scandal. We need to do something about it. One of the people who has been working on this now steadily for the last couple of years is the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), who is a cochair with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) and myself of the Prescription Drug Task Force in the Congress. And the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) has been terrific. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on all of this.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, very well said, I say to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), very well said. I turn now to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman) who has been working so hard on this issue working in the Committee on Ways and Means and in her own district to try to lower the costs of prescription drugs for seniors.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues and I thank all of the Members who have been here. Our mission is simple. We are trying to stop price discrimination and provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and we can do this. The Democratic Caucus is committed to those goals. If we can just get some Republicans on board, we can achieve it in this Congress. Some seniors struggle monthly to buy medicine for themselves. Social Security payments rise with inflation, but drug prices have risen even more. Lanoxin, the most prescribed drug for older people, increased 15 percent from 1998 to 1999. More than 87 percent over 5 years. I read conflicting statistics about drug prices. One editorial may say that prescription drugs Americans can already afford. They say the average cost of drugs is $350 per American per year. But they do not tell that this price included the entire population, old and young alike. Seniors at the low end of the income scale, transplant patients, and the disabled need drugs continually to stay alive. By bringing the Stark-Dingell and Allen-Turner-Shows bills to the floor we can begin the dialogue needed to move forward. Nearly half of those on Medicare have incomes less than $15,000 a year. A prescription drug benefit is what seniors on the low-income scale want and these two bills address those needs. We know we need to move forward in our discussions, and get these prescription drug bills on the House floor to discuss. We need to protect our elderly, Mr. Speaker. Medicare should guarantee access to a voluntary prescription drug benefit and provide comprehensive coverage for seniors. Also, Medicare prescription drug benefit must not reduce access to other Medicare benefits. I request that these two bills come to the floor so that we can all take part in a discussion on how to improve Medicare coverage, affordability, administration, and the quality of prescription drug access. Prescription drugs can prevent, treat, and cure more diseases than ever before. Prolonging and improving the quality of life. No one would design Medicare today without including coverage for prescription drugs. For example, there is the case of a 70-year-old Durham, NC, widow with emphysema, high blood pressure, and arthritis whose monthly bills for Prilosec, Norvase, two inhalers, and nitroglycerin which has forced her daughter to take out a second mortgage on her home. (Testimony of Michael Hash, Deputy Administrator, Health Care Financing before the House Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Health & Environment, Sept. 28, 1999.) Only one in four Medicare beneficiaries or 24 percent has private sector coverage provided by former employers to retirees. I might point out, that the number of firms offering retiree health coverage dropped by 25 percent from 1994 to 1998 (Foster-Higgins research firm). Currently, less than 1 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries has drug coverage from a supplemental Medigap plan. Costs for these policies are rising rapidly, by 35 percent between 1994 and 1998 according to Consumer Reports. We need to talk about these two drug bills on the House floor today. The ranks of people of the age 65 will double to 70 million by the year 2030. On average, people over 65 fill between nine and a dozen prescriptions a year, compared with two or three for people between the ages of 25 and 44. These numbers are not hidden from the general population. They are in the Wall Street Journal. However, if the elderly do read and must make a choice between reading the Wall Street Journal and obtaining drugs to maintain daily life, perhaps, they are hidden from the population that is currently on Medicare. I could go on, Mr. Speaker, but I feel that it is time to bring these bills to the floor. Therefore, I request the discharge of these two bills.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, Congress is back in session; and while we are resuming our work, we have to attend first to part of the unfinished business of last year. All across this country, seniors are finding it harder and harder to take their prescription drugs, because they simply cannot afford to take the medication that their doctors tell them they must take. They are not following doctor's orders, simply because they cannot afford their medication. We have looked at this issue over the past year, the Democrats have looked at this issue, and are ready to go again, ready to do some work to relieve the problems that seniors and others are facing all around this country. We need to do two things. First, we need to stop price discrimination against seniors. Second, we need to provide a universal prescription drug benefit under Medicare. Let us start with what is going on in the real world. In the real world, many seniors are not filling their prescriptions or, when they do, they are taking one pill out of three. However, all across this country, they are finding they simply cannot afford to take the drugs that their doctors tell them they have to take. Starting in my district of Maine, the First District of Maine and extending all across this country, the democratic staff of the Committee on Government Reform has done a series of studies. The first of those studies which I released in July of 1998 show this: on average, seniors pay twice as much for their medication as the drug company's best customers. Well, who are the best customers? They are HMOs, big hospitals, and the Federal Government itself buying prescription drugs for Medicaid recipients or for the Veterans' Administration. Twice as much. Seniors pay twice as much as the drug company's best customers. Second, a study first done in October of 1998 and now replicated around the country revealed that citizens in Maine and across the country pay 72 percent more than Canadians and 102 percent more than Mexicans for the same drugs in the same quantities by the same manufacturer. A third study that I released in November of 1999 showed that when drugs are manufactured for human use and sold to pharmacists, the charges are, on average, 151 percent more than when the same drug is sold to veterinarians for animal use. Any way we look at it, there is rampant price discrimination in this country against seniors and all of those other Americans who do not have coverage for their prescription drugs. The industry has engaged in this widespread price discrimination because frankly, what they are trying to do is to charge whatever the market will bear. So seniors, who have no insurance for their prescription drugs, pay the highest prices in the land because they have no bargaining power. Mr. Speaker, as I said, we have to do two things. We have to stop price discrimination, and we have to provide a universal prescription drug benefit under Medicare. As one can see from this chart to my right, seniors are 12 percent of the population, but they buy 33 percent of all prescription drugs. Mr. Speaker, 37 percent of all seniors have absolutely no coverage at all for prescription medications. Another 25 to 30 percent have very inadequate coverage for their medications, so 60 percent or more are really struggling simply to take the medications that their doctors tell them they have to take. Now, let us contrast the situation with the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in the country. Every year, the Fortune magazine shows which industries are the most profitable, and every year by every measure it is the pharmaceutical industry. Just to give my colleagues one example, in terms of return on revenues, the pharmaceutical industry brings in 18.5 percent, on average. That is an average for those 10 or 12 pharmaceutical companies. The next most profitable industry comes in at 13.2 percent, a 40 percent plus difference. In short, it comes down to this: the most profitable industry in the country is charging the highest prices in the world to those least able to afford it, primarily our seniors who do not have prescription drug coverage under Medicare. We aim to change that in two ways. The Democrats tomorrow will begin a discharge petition to bring to this floor two bills, H.R. 664, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act, and H.R. 1495, which would provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Here is what the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act does. This bill is very simple. It would allow pharmacists to buy drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at the best price given to the Federal Government. Remember, we were talking about that price discrimination, and this is the way to end price discrimination. It would give senior citizens the benefit of the same discount received by hospitals, big HMOs, and the Federal Government. It does not involve any significant increase in government spending. It creates no new bureaucracy. Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues that the pharmaceutical industry does not want this to happen, just as the pharmaceutical industry does not want a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. They will run TV ads saying they do, but they have helped to fund a group called the Citizens for Better Medicare which says seniors need a benefit, but I can tell my colleagues the pharmaceutical industry is blocking every effort to improve Medicare, to strengthen Medicare, to make sure that our seniors get what they need, which is coverage under Medicare and a prescription drug benefit. I found that in my district, many seniors are confused when they get these Citizens for Better Medicare mailings. They think this is a group trying to improve our health care system, trying to extend coverage, but it is not. The fact is, it is a group that is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. They ran all of those ads featuring Flo last year, and now in some areas Flo is back. But over and over again the industry is the obstacle. We really can support one of two groups. One can line up with the pharmaceutical industry, or one can line up with our seniors. Mr. Speaker, for H.R. 664 we have over 140 cosponsors in the House. Unfortunately, not one Republican has stepped forward. Not one Republican will support this legislation to give a discount to seniors who are already in a Federal health care plan called Medicare which does not provide prescription drug coverage, and all we are saying is give them the same break that hospitals get, that HMOs get, that the Veterans' Administration gets. That is all we are saying. Seniors deserve a break on the price of their prescription drug medications. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that so many of my colleagues have come here tonight to speak on this issue. I want to begin by yielding to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) very much. I appreciate all she has done. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Nevada (Ms. Berkley), a short way down.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for all her good work on this issue. I yield to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley), who has been a real leader on this particular issue and has felt the efforts, I guess I would say, of the pharmaceutical industry to stop her from speaking out. But she is back. We are glad she is here.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, Congress is back in session. We heard from the President the other night, and he laid out an agenda for this country of priorities that we need to work on during the course of this year. Many of those priorities in fact are the unfinished business of last year, when we did not accomplish all that we might have. The issue that I want to address this evening has to do with the high cost of prescription drugs for our seniors, because there is a problem that in the past year has only become much worse. Two years ago, in 1998, I first had a study done in my district that showed that seniors on average pay twice as much for their prescription medications as the drug companies' preferred customers. Those preferred customers are HMOs, hospitals, and the Federal government itself, which purchases drugs for Medicaid and for the Veterans Administration. In October of 1998, we released a second study in the first District of Maine. That study showed that people in Maine pay 72 percent more than Canadians and 102 percent more than Mexicans for the same drug in the same quantity from the same manufacturer. That price discrimination is going on all over the country. We have now had over 150 different studies, one study or the other demonstrating this price discrimination by the pharmaceutical industry against those who do not have insurance for their prescription drugs. Seniors make up 12 percent of the population, but they buy one-third of all prescription medications. Seniors, 37 percent of them have no coverage at all for their prescription medications. About 8 percent have prescription drug coverage through a MediGap policy, but those Medigap policies are very limited in terms of their benefits. Often they are capped out at $1,000 or $1,500 per year. Often the policies cost more than the benefit that they provide. About 8 percent of people in this country have prescription drug coverage through an HMO. Medicare beneficiaries have HMO coverage. But if we read the news about what is happening to HMOs providing coverage under Medicare, some of them are dropping coverage in areas entirely because it is not profitable. Most of them are lowering the cap that they provide for a benefit on prescription drugs, and most of them are increasing the premiums that they are asking people to pay. So HMOs under Medicare are no way to provide secure, reliable coverage for prescription drugs. The fact is that the industry charges whatever the market will bear for prescription drugs, and they give discounts to big customers, to favored customers, they give discounts to Canadians and Mexicans and Europeans, but seniors in this country pay the highest prices in the world. The fact is, the bottom line is that the most profitable industry in the country is charging the highest prices in the world to people who can least afford it, including our seniors. The bill that I introduced last year, H.R. 664, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act, would deal with this problem by eliminating the price discrimination. The bill is very simple. It allows the government to negotiate lower prices for people who are on Medicare, people who are already in a Federal health care plan. It is called Medicare. It works, but it does not have prescription drug coverage, and it needs to. All my bill would do is allow pharmacies to buy drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at the best price given to the Federal government, either the price given to the Veterans Administration or the price paid by Medicaid. I thought that this bill would attract Members of the other side of the aisle when they understood it was a bill that created no new bureaucracy, it involved no significant amount of expenditure by the Federal government, and it would provide a discount of up to 40 percent for seniors in this country who really need the help and need it now. But the truth is that though we have 140 Democratic cosponsors of this legislation, not one Republican, not one has seen fit to step up and cosponsor this legislation. I grant that this is a battle. The pharmaceutical industry does not like this bill. The pharmaceutical industry is running TV ads all across the country touting what a wonderful, warm, and fuzzy industry it is, and how they do research and development that is important for the American people. About that, they are right. But what they are trying to do is block the President's prescription drug benefit plan. They are trying to block the progress that we are making in getting a discount for Medicare beneficiaries. This is a huge battle. On this battle, the Democrats are lining up, taking on the pharmaceutical industry. We are going to be introducing a discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor next week. We would like to have some Republican support. I certainly hope at some point we will get it.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, we need to reduce the marriage penalty, and do it this year, but to vote this week for this irresponsible Republican proposal would be a huge mistake. About half of the married couples in this country pay a marriage penalty, but the other half get a marriage bonus. The Republican plan is not directed just at those who pay the marriage penalty, it is a grab bag of goodies weighted to the top one-quarter percent of income earners. It would make it much harder for us to pay down the national debt, to provide a prescription drug benefit for seniors, to improve our schools, or to strengthen social security and Medicare. The Democratic alternative doubles the standard deduction for married couples, expands the earned income tax credit, and, unlike the Republican plan, protects families from the harmful effects of the alternative minimum tax. The Republican bill is estimated to cost $182 billion over 10 years. The Democratic alternative would provide $95 billion of tax relief targeted more precisely to reduce the marriage penalty and to those middle-income taxpayers who need relief the most. Real marriage penalty relief and true fiscal discipline are only available in the Democratic alternative.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield briefly, one point about the tax cut, that was such a bogus issue, because there was no trillion dollar on-budget surplus. If we make just two simple assumptions that the Republican leadership did not make, one, that we would have emergency spending at at least the same level that we had had it for the last 5 or 10 years, and number two, that there would be growth in domestic spending at least at the rate of inflation, if we just made those two assumptions, the trillion dollar on-budget surplus became a $200 billion on-budget surplus. Well, we cannot have an $800 billion tax cut when there is only a $200 billion surplus and even pretend that we are being fiscally responsible. So there is one issue where I believe the majority went astray. Here is another one. There has been all this talk and accusations about the Democrats raiding the social security trust fund. Sometimes people on our side of the aisle say, well, they have done it, too. We get into this conversation that is really not very productive and misleading. Some of the articles lately have been illuminating. In September, the Washington Post called it ``a fake debate.'' In October, the New York Times said it was ``social security scare-mongering.'' In a recent column, Henry Aaron described this as ``great pretenders.'' The truth was shown in an article in USA Today this morning. The headline is, ``Add It Up, Social Surplus Is Getting Tapped.'' But the important point is this: The Republicans have already dipped into the social security surplus to the tune of $17 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Our own budgeters are saying that. Let us not make a big deal of this, because the truth is, this does not affect the security of the benefits for a single person who is getting social security. It does not extend or contract the solvency of the social security trust fund by one day. The real problem that we know, that we have been talking about, is how do we make sure that when there are fewer people working and paying into the system, that the retirees will be able to maintain the benefits at at least the current level. We can deal with that issue. That is a real issue. But we cannot deal with the issues of health care, of education, of the environment in this country if we are engaged in fake debates about tax cuts and surpluses where the numbers do not add up, and allegations of thievery that have no place on the Floor of this Chamber or anywhere else. We need to be serious about the work that we do, and as I said before, remember who we are doing it for.

Mr. ALLEN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for her eloquence on these topics. What she has been saying is that we are not here to go through the motions. I remember when I was elected, I got a little handwritten note from a constituent of mine who had sent me a $20 check at some point during the campaign. And he said, when you get to Washington, remember the people who sent you there. What he was saying is, all of those people who sent us here did not send us here to help ourselves, they sent us here to help them, to work for them. Occasionally, as I travel around my district in Maine, once in a while someone gets it right and comes up to me and says, we sent you there to work for us. It is true. If we forget that even for a day, we are slipping from our assignment. Mr. Speaker, it was 3 years ago almost exactly to the day when I had just been elected for the first time. I came in for an orientation session. Our leader, our Democratic leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said something that I will not forget, partly because he does not let us forget it. He says it often. He said that ``nothing important in this House ever gets done except on a bipartisan basis. Nothing important ever gets done in this House except on a bipartisan basis.'' That is why this year, when we look back at this year, we cannot help but be disappointed, because we have had opportunities. Let us look at two of them. On two of the major issues that came before this body, we constructed a bipartisan majority made up mostly of Democrats, but of a number of courageous and determined Republicans. Let us look at one issue, campaign finance reform. In the last session of this House, in the last Congress, it was a battle simply to get the bill to the floor. But this session of Congress, with the help of the Speaker, it came to the floor. And a substantial number of Republicans, I think 60 or more, voted with the Democrats to pass campaign finance reform in the House, but then the leadership appoints conferees and the issue dies. We do not get anywhere particularly in the other body. The second example is the Patients' Bill of Rights. There is no question that the real Patients' Bill of Rights which we passed in the House of Representatives could not have passed without Republican support; not a lot of Republican support, but some Republican support. What happens? At the end of the day, the Speaker appoints conferees, only one of whom on the Republican side, only one of the 13 conferees, had actually voted for the Dingell-Norwood bill. There again, a chance for a bipartisan accomplishment was lost, was lost, to the detriment of the people who sent us here to work for them. A couple of other examples where we did not have the same kind of success. It seems to me that when we look at all of this, we tried to pass some modest gun safety provisions and the Republicans said no. We tried to improve health care by passing a Patients' Bill of Rights; some Republicans said yes, the majority said no, and the leadership said no. In the other body there was an effort to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty to make the world a safer place for all of us, and the Republicans said no. They have said no to prescription drug relief for seniors who need the help. They have said no to extending the solvency of social security. They have said no to extending the solvency of Medicare. Mr. Speaker, we have work to do for the people of this country in this House and it is not being done. Let me come back for a moment, since both Members said I would talk about it, and I cannot sit down without talking about the issue of prescription drugs. The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) said that what we try to do here grows out of need. Here is a story about how this whole sort of issue of prescription drugs arose for me. In the first year or so that I was elected, I would go to meetings with groups of seniors. I would go there talking about the issues that Washington wanted to talk about: Social security and Medicare, and the need to make those programs solvent for the long-term. What my seniors said, they would pull out a little white slip of paper and say, what I am really worried about is the cost of these prescription drugs. So eventually when the Democratic staff on the Committee on Government Reform said they would be interested in doing a study, something I wanted to call attention to in my district, I said, please, can you do something on prescription drugs? What we found by that study that has now been replicated in 130 districts across the country is that on average, seniors pay twice as much for their prescription medication as the drug companies' preferred customers: the big HMOs, the hospitals, and the Federal government itself through the VA and Medicaid. That price discrimination needs to stop. I have one bill, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act. The gentlemen from California, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Stark, have a bill to provide prescription drug benefits under Medicare. We need both approaches. The bottom line is what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said over and over again, we cannot do anything important, and these are important issues, that is not done in a bipartisan way. We need some help from the other side. Frankly, there is no need to wait. This is a disappointing year. We are coming back next year, however. We will go right back at it. We are going to do the best we can on these issues for the American people. Next year I hope that we have a little different spirit in this House, that we get back to basics, that we remember who sent us here, that we remember why we came, and that we put aside the ideology that the Federal government cannot do anything or should not do anything or cannot do anything right or should not do anything, and we do the best we can for the American people. If we do that, we will have some gun show safety positions, we will pass and enact the Patients' Bill of Rights, we will pass a prescription drug benefit, and make sure that there is enough leverage on price so the taxpayers do not get taken for a ride, and we will do something about preserving Medicare and social security for the long- term. That would be an agenda that the 106th Congress, both sides of the aisle, could be proud of, because it is an agenda that grows out of the needs and the wishes and the beliefs of the American people today. That is the agenda that we have all been fighting for on this side of the aisle. We have not been quite persuasive enough yet, but I am still hopeful that next year will be the year, and next year we can say with some real satisfaction that we took on the major issues of our time and we dealt with them productively.