Richard Burr

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H.Res. 576) supporting efforts to increase childhood cancer awareness, treatment, and research.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), the bill's author.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey). Again, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), the authors of this bill. I have no additional speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2346) to authorize the enforcement by State and local governments of certain Federal Communications Commission regulations regarding use of citizens band radio equipment.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to stand before this House today in support of my good friend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and in support of his legislation that would expand the current loan forgiveness program for teachers in high poverty schools. As chief architect of the original program in 1998, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) is a tremendous advocate for teachers. I appreciate his work on this behalf. I am increasingly concerned about the state of our Nation's education system, more specifically with regard to the quality of teaching. Just today, there are newspaper reports about teacher turnover in North Carolina schools. Mr. Speaker, I can assure my colleagues that the news is not good and it is getting worse. According to the North Carolina Department of Instruction, last year's teacher turnover rate was 13.59 percent, up from 13.4 in 1999 and 12.3 percent in 1998. This means that over 12,000 out of 89,000 teachers in North Carolina left their job for one reason or another. Perhaps a more startling figure is that about 30 percent of these teachers had tenure. While these numbers are unsettling, I must share with my colleagues that North Carolina is making improvements. We have the most National Board Certified teachers in the country. We are recognized as one of the top two States in improving teaching. North Carolina has made the most gains on SAT test scores, more than any other State in the last 10 years. And finally, the National Education Goals Panel said that North Carolina is one of the top States in business and community support for public education. Even with this outstanding recognition, I think that we can all agree that it just is not enough. If North Carolina is making such improvements and our numbers are this high, I shudder to look at the States who have higher turnover rates. We must try harder, we must work harder to give our children an education that will provide them with the tools necessary to make solid choices in their lives. Sadly, many of our students are not able to make these choices. I believe that we can change that. In North Carolina, teachers in 1,459 elementary and secondary schools are eligible for loan forgiveness under the current program. Of this number, teachers in 178 schools in and around my district are eligible. An especially attractive piece of this package is that all special education teachers are eligible for loan cancellation under the Graham bill. I am pleased that my district's most at-risk schools have a program to help them attract quality teachers, and I think this loan forgiveness program is a good foundation for us to build upon. Mr. Speaker, our Nation's most precious resource is our children. I believe that this bill gives our children, especially our disadvantaged children, the chance to have a better education. When I spoke on the floor yesterday about the 25th anniversary of the IDEA bill, I reminded my colleagues that every student has a right to free public education. I believe that we have secured access to education. Loan forgiveness for qualified teachers brings us one step closer to improving quality in the classroom. To close, it seems that the latest trend in Washington is to see who can buy the most teachers or who can spend the most on education. I cannot stand by and watch Congress and the President poor billions into the Title I program and cross their fingers any longer and hope that education gets better and student achievement goes up. I think we can do better. We will do better. We need to give teachers a reason to go to Title I schools and invest their time, their energy and their talents. Support this bill, and we are well on the way.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. And to steal a recruit from Maryland is an easy thing for those of us in North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I was not here 25 years ago; but our good chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), was. Under his leadership, his commitment, and his determination, he has helped shape education policy for the better. He has been a teacher, a principal, a superintendent. We are lucky to have him fighting not just for disabled children but for all children. Here we are today celebrating the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, otherwise known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. As a result, we have more children with disabilities graduating from high school and at least three times the students with disabilities entering college. When I read over the committee's report and floor proceedings from the 94th Congress for this legislation, I realized that this bill laid a foundation for the proper relationship between States and the Federal Government on the subject of education. Clearly, the right to a free public education is basic to equal opportunity and is vital to secure the future and prosperity of our people. The failure to provide this right was criminal and, thankfully, was corrected 25 years ago. As we turn to the future, we must fulfill our commitment not just to the States but ultimately to the children. We must not simply vote to fully fund IDEA, but we must make sure that the money gets there. We have increased funding for this program 115 percent since 1995, well over $2.6 billion. However, we can do better. We should be funding 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure to the State and not a penny less. As leaders of this Nation, we expect so much from our teachers, our administrators, and our children. It is their turn to expect no less of us. We cannot let them down. As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of this landmark legislation, we must remember its intent and continue to press for full funding. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) for his dedication, for his focus, for his commitment not just to disabled children but to all children.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania remembers that it would have been easier with a limited pot of money to say let us take care of seniors. Those other ones who might be ancillary groups, they do not fall into the same category. There was that strong argument from Members, but also that sense of responsibility that we had that we cannot leave anybody behind. This was the most inclusive piece of legislation on prescription drugs to be debated in this institution ever. The only regret that I have is that it did not yet move past the House of Representatives; that we have not had the engagement of our friends at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, who talk about prescription drugs; but we have done something on prescription drugs. We have done something that works. It expands the coverage and it provides the benefit. It means that those seniors who have had to make crucial decisions between rent and drugs, food and drugs, will not have to do it because of limited incomes. It means that we have looked at that disabled population. We have not excluded them. In many cases seniors have more employment opportunities than those who are in that disabled category, but we did not leave them behind. We included them because we knew the importance of medication but, more importantly, the importance of taking medication on a regular basis; not just when you can afford it, but on a regular basis. Because we know that those individuals, more than most, need that regular routine and that they cannot go with interruption based upon their cash flow, their lack of work that week, their lack of income that month. That safety net was provided for them, as it was for seniors. I cannot imagine another issue that this institution could take up where we so clearly had enough vision to look down the road and see the demographic change that was happening, where we knew that the senior population will, in fact, double; where the institution did not use that vision to prepare for that future. If we miss this opportunity, how in the world will we design a benefit program that is right for my mother and that is affordable for my children when we are talking about twice as many people and having to learn how to find the right program then? The smart thing for us to do, even though the gentleman and I know that we will not do it this calendar year, is to come back in January, to reintroduce this bill, and to make a commitment to whoever is on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that we are going to pass it and that we want to work with them. Unlike a lot of talk about prescription drugs in this town, for those of us that have worked on it now since January, we have always said our door is open; we want to talk. It is just nobody has ever knocked. And when we have left it open, no one has ever shown up.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania knows, it is one thing to talk about catastrophic coverage, which is the ability to look at the senior population and say the one thing that we can do is put the Federal Government where it should have been in health care, the safety net, and assure our seniors that if they ever spend out of pocket a certain amount of money in a given year that they will never be exposed for any more than a fixed amount, catastrophic coverage, a limit. It is one thing to talk about it; it is another thing to put it on paper and to pass the test of the Congressional Budget Office or the Office of Management and Budget and have that number scored. But we did it. We did it and we lived within the framework of the available money, and we provided a stop loss for seniors of $6,000. The President had a bunch of pieces of a plan, and he said he would like to incorporate stop loss or catastrophic loss, but the fact is that he could never do it in a way that he could put it on paper and have that paper scored because of the way he proposed designing the original plan, which was no choice, which got very little discount from the current price of pharmaceuticals in the marketplace. The Congressional Budget Office looked at our approach and said that because we had competition, because we had provided seniors and the disabled choice in the plans that they could choose from, we will achieve at least a 25 percent discount across the board for things that are insurance-based purchased and for things that are purchased out of pocket, a 25 percent savings just by creating choice that the administration does not get with their proposal.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. If there existed truth in advertising on this we would have stars all across this plan because it provides at every level what seniors want. Before the gentleman mentioned employers, I had written the word employers on a piece of paper up here because that was one of the biggest challenges that our whole task force had. There is a segment of America, a large percentage of America that are seniors today that are currently provided prescription drugs as a benefit of their retirement. As we see prices go up 11 or 12 percent a year, the question we have to look out and ask is how long will they continue to offer that benefit. Because they are not obligated to, it is just a commitment that they made when individuals retired. We found a way to incorporate into our plan that those employers that provide that benefit, once those individuals reached that stop-loss amount, they would be covered under the Federal stop loss, a great incentive for employers to continue to provide that first dollar coverage for the millions of seniors that are currently under their health plans. We found the approach to keep the employer engaged. We found a way to incorporate the catastrophic or the stop loss into their plan without dislocating them, which made our plan totally voluntary to every eligible person regardless of where they currently had their coverage, if they did. They could stick with that and still utilize that stop-loss protection of the national plan. Clearly, we spent a lot of time on that, making sure that we got it right. But the fact that it was voluntary, the fact that for those that chose to participate there was choice, the fact that everybody, whether they were in their employer plan or chose one of the accredited plans by that new entity that ran the prescription drug benefit, all of them benefited from an annual stop-loss amount that protected every senior and made sure that they could not lose everything that they had accumulated because they had run into a health care problem that required unusual pharmaceutical costs.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) for yielding to me. The gentleman and I have done this numerous times. We did it when it was not popular to get out and talk about the expansion of a benefit. But because both of us worked 2\1/2\ years on reforming the Food and Drug Administration, we understood from that process just how many people in America were relying on the research and development that not only public entities but private companies were doing. We understood the great advances we had made in the last 30 years in this country in treatment of disease, prevention of disease, through the use of pharmaceuticals that did not exist in the 1960s when we created Medicare. It is not hard for me to believe that, when Medicare was created, Republicans and Democrats, neither one perceived that prescription drug coverage was a benefit that should be encompassed in it. But we have also seen through the evolution of Medicare that today the Health Care Financing Administration is, in fact, the wrong agency for us to look to to administer a new drug benefit. I think that is why many of us took on the great challenge of, one, being the first to talk about expansion of a drug benefit for seniors, but to, two, do it in a way that addressed what we saw the problems in the delivery system, that we needed a new entity whose sole job it was to administer this benefit to the 37 million Americans, those seniors, the disabled who qualified for Medicare benefits. It is a shame that it is an election year. If this was not a Presidential election year, we would have a drug benefit, not only passed in the House of Representatives, it would be passed in the Senate, it would be signed today by any President in the White House. But the sheer realities of the year 2000 is it is a Presidential election year. The gentleman and I have been faced with that before. But because it is a Presidential election year, it means that politics do come into health care. At a time where we know in America that the senior population over the next 10 to 15 years will double, will move from 37 million to 72 million seniors in this country, all with the same challenges about how do I pay for prescription drugs, at a time that the mapping of the Human Genome project will be finished, we will be able to treat diseases that were chronic or terminal up to that point, we never had a cure for, and that in many cases those pharmaceuticals will now give us the ability to treat and in some cases hopefully cure, but it does no good if people cannot pay for it. This is the first real opportunity that we have had to present a plan that is market based, that subsidizes those most at risk, that is designed in a way that the majority of seniors would want to participate out of their pocket to be part of, and for those that cannot, that they receive a government subsidy; and that it provides them the choice that they look for in any health care plan that they might look for when we created Medicare+Choice as an option for seniors who had an insurance-based option, many of which are in Pennsylvania with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood). We did not limit it to one company. We did not say it could only be offered by the Federal Government. The American people have been very specific. One size fits all does not work in health care. Drug benefits should be no different. We should supply seniors affordability, choice, access. The sooner we can do that, the better they can plan for those later years. But, more importantly, long term, the gentleman from Pennsylvania and I both know the less expensive health care is going to be to us, because what we have been treating or what we have been operating on today might just be a prescription drug in the future. Heart disease because of high blood pressure is controllable with pharmaceuticals today. Bypass surgery could be a thing of the past with a noninvasive procedure or with pharmaceutical treatment in the future. We will never experience this unless this body, this institution, the government moves forward with a prescription drug benefit plan that allows seniors access, choice, and affordability. Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate the observations of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) on that.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) for yielding the time to me. Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honor to be here today to ask my colleagues to support H.R. 4534, which was cosponsored by every member of the North Carolina delegation. Jim Broyhill, along with his entire family, has always had a sincere dedication to serving the community and helping wherever there was a need. His parents instilled in him the importance of giving of oneself and time to help make a better place for all to live. It was because of this desire that in 1962 Jim Broyhill first ran for the United States Congress in the old eighth district of North Carolina. There is a story that is told on Jim; it is still told today about that first campaign. Old timers in Alexander County remember the first speech that Jim Broyhill gave as a candidate. They said it was one of the worst speeches they ever heard a political candidate ever give, but thank goodness Jim Broyhill got better as that campaign went on. In time, he rose to the position of ranking member of the Committee on Commerce; and with this, his influence grew and his reputation for honesty, for hard work grew with that. Jim Broyhill was a workhorse when serving in the Congress, and while he may not have been seen on the Sunday talk shows, everyone in Washington knew the value of what he was doing. In 1985, Jim announced he would run for the United States Senate; but before he could, Senator East died and he was appointed to that position. For the remainder of the year after losing that Senate race, Jim could have gone into retirement, but he did not do it. He continued to serve and was appointed in 1987 as the chairman of North Carolina Economic Development Board, the chief advisory board for the North Carolina Department of Commerce. From this post, he assisted the State's efforts to recruit new business and expand existing industries in North Carolina. Then in 1989, at the request of Governor Martin, Jim took on the full-time responsibility of serving as the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, a position he held until 1991. It should be noted that in the years in which he was affiliated with the Department of Commerce, they saw some of the greatest gains in economic expansion in North Carolina's history. In 1991, Jim finally did enter retirement; and it is fortunate for Winston-Salem that he chose to be there, with his wife, Louise Robbins Broyhill, who is one of the most gracious ladies and has always been supportive of Jim's ventures. They are the parents of three children and several grandchildren. I commend Jim today, because Jim Broyhill is a true example of what a public servant should be, a man more concerned with doing his duty and serving his country than with personal gain. He has built a reputation of dedication and devotion to his State, his country, and, even in retirement, Jim Broyhill finds time to work with the local food bank and the other organizations where he gives his time and his expertise. Jim Broyhill never went in for negative campaigning. That is the type of individual Jim Broyhill was, a very optimistic person. Jim Broyhill's years of service deserve some form of recognition, and the naming of a post office in his hometown is a small way in which we can honor the work that he has already done before us. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of H.R. 4534, to rename the Lenoir Post Office as the ``James T. Broyhill Post Office Building.''

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, last summer I introduced legislation with Representative Ballenger that approached this issue differently than H.R. 2909 as introduced. Through the committee process, however, we were able to reach a compromise between H.R. 2342 and H.R. 2909. Through the efforts of Chairman Gilman and Ranking Member Gejdenson the legislation we are considering today takes the best of both bills, and I would like to thank them for their hard work in moving the process forward. I would also like to thank Representative Delahunt, who perhaps more than anyone in this body appreciates the positive impact this legislation can have. He is to be commended for his role in the process as well. I would like to extend a special thank you to those parents of children adopted from overseas who contacted me with their concerns and for sharing their experiences with me. Their input was critically important, and I appreciate their active interest in this legislation and the process we have gone through. It is an unfortunate reality that there are people willing to exploit the vulnerability of needy children and their prospective parents. The willingness of these families to go through the international adoption process, despite its flaws, is testimony to their character. The passage of this legislation affirms our commitment to creating a framework that better protects children and their families in the future. Despite our different approaches in addressing the problems faced by children and parents in the international adoption process, it is safe to say we all want the same thing--to help those who want nothing more than to provide a child with a loving home. It is my firm belief that the legislation we are considering today will do just that, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for this important bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unavoidably detained last night and missed rollcall vote No. 373. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my reluctant support for the Conference Report on H.R. 4425, the Fiscal Year 2001 Military Construction Appropriations Bill. While I wholeheartedly endorse the bill as originally reported by the House in May, which contained funding for important construction projects at North Carolina's military bases, I do have some concerns about the new spending added to the bill in Conference. Much of what was added to this bill in Conference could have been addressed through the normal appropriations process. Among the most egregious examples of pork spending in this bill are: $45 million for a new jet for the Commandant of the Coast Guard; $25 million for a new community center in Ohio; $7 million to ``study'' sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean; and $25 million to build a new firearms training center for the Customs Service in West Virginia. However, the bill also contains numerous provisions that address the true emergency needs of many in this country, and in North Carolina particularly. Thousands of people in my home state are still struggling to overcome the impact of last fall's hurricanes, and have been waiting for months for Congress to take action. The assistance provided in this conference report will be critical in helping my fellow North Carolinians return to at least a semblance of the lives they led before last September's devastating floods. Despite my concerns about the use of this bill to provide money for projects that are obviously not true emergencies, I am grateful to the Appropriations Committee for providing the desperately needed hurricane-related assistance, and appreciate their hard work in bringing this legislation to the floor.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, while we have been here today to debate this bill, many Medicare beneficiaries across this country have taken their medication now for the third time. How long must they wait? The time is right today for us to solve this problem. Look around us. Look at this Chamber, the power that exists here, the Members before us who have handled the legislation that is so important to the future of this country. I wonder if in the old Statuary Hall just down the hall from here if the words ``sham,'' ``hoax,'' ``dangerous'' were used when they debated legislation that we still look at today that affects our lives. I do not believe they did. Because there was a spirit then that there were some things that rose above politics. There were some things that were so important for future generations that it bypassed everything. Thomas Jefferson said, ``I am not an advocate of frequent changes in laws and institutions, but laws and institutions must advance to keep pace with the progress of the human mind.'' It was a message to us. It was a message to America that we have an obligation to revise and update our laws and, importantly, this institution. This is such an opportunity to take a 35-year-old program and to make an addition that technology has now made possible to be part of that. Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to see the human face, the seniors, the disabled that qualify for Medicare all across this country that are waiting for us. They are waiting for us to devise a plan. They are waiting for us to create a benefit. I truly believe today that Republicans and Democrats are both trying to supply that benefit. But we have some very stark differences. The President would like to administer this program through the Health Care Financing Administration. We want to do it through a new entity, not an entity that is bogged down with a system today that they cannot run but with one whose only responsibility it is is to administer and negotiate a drug benefit. The President wants a one-size-fits-all. We believe that choice is important. Choice is important at HCFA today because they use private- sector insurance companies in Part A and Part B and they have the flexibility in each region to design that benefit to meet the needs of that region. Mr. Speaker, my mother deserves the passage of this bill. She is one of those seniors that takes quite a bit of medication. Thank goodness she is able to afford it. But she deserves it because she has reached that golden age; and just as much as she deserves it, my children deserve that whatever we do today they can afford tomorrow, and that is why it is so delicate an issue. Mr. Speaker, this plan makes drug benefits available. It makes them affordable. They are voluntary. It has the security and predictability that seniors need. It has choice and it does not come from that face we know as government. It will stand the test of time. It will stand the test of the cost; and more importantly, Mr. Speaker, it will stand the weight of a doubling of the senior population in America. George Bush stood on the steps of this Capitol in 1988, and he said in his inaugural address, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the measure of our lives. In our hearts, we know what matters. We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car or a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and his town better than he found it. Mr. Speaker, as we close in on July 1, the year 2000, the 35th anniversary of the creation of Medicare, I hope it is this body that passes that date, having passed a prescription drug benefit so for the first time seniors in America will have access to affordable drugs for their well-being. I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Bliley) for his help, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), and all the Members that were involved.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania is exactly right. Let me take this opportunity in closing my part of this out to say, for the first 5 months, there has been a tremendous amount of work, not only work by Republicans, but by Democrats, a tremendous amount of work by the administration and by Congress to try to figure out what the right plan is, to try to figure out exactly what the benefit should look like and what value we can extend to seniors under a drug benefit. Will it be perfect? No. But there is no substitute for the commitment of this institution to say we need it and not do it today. This is not a time where we can delay another year, another generation, another Congress, another administration. We do not get a better opportunity than this where we have shown fiscal restraint, we have accumulated some additional money over and above Social Security surplus, over and above every other trust fund that we have got. These are real dollars. As I said to my constituents, when we get to real dollars, when we know that we are paying down debt in a responsible way, and we have got real dollars, we will look at real problems that we think we can solve. This is a real problem today. This is a real problem today that we can solve. All it takes is the will of Republicans, Democrats, the administration and Congress. It takes every American out there that is listening to us tonight that can benefit from these, calling their Members and saying, do it now. Do not wait.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Not only are we faced with a situation where pharmaceutical costs continue to increase at double digit rates, we also look at a growth in the senior population. We know from looking at the demographics that really do not lie, as seniors grow older, as one reaches that magical age of 65 long before I do, then in fact the population eligible for Medicare over the next 15 years will grow from somewhere in the neighborhood of 38 million today to somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 million. So if this were a company we were at and we were trying to do long- term planning as it related to our costs, we would look at some of the things down the road that we knew were going to happen and we would try to address those as early as we could so, in fact, the impact was more predictable, our options were greater and the cost was less. That simply is what we are talking about doing with the drug benefit in Medicare. We know that the senior population will double over the next 15 years. We know that pharmaceutical costs are going to continue to rise, in part, because we have the gold standard in the world in the FDA of drug approvals. We know when drugs come through that they have passed the safe and efficacy standards. That does not mean that we do not have some after-market approval problems, but hopefully we have an FDA that is on top of that and monitoring it and getting a lot better. The reality is that as we see the population increasing, as we see the cost of drugs increasing, is not the smart thing for Congress and the administration to do this year to pass a drug benefit to watch that benefit to make sure that in fact it is the type of benefit that seniors need; that it has the cost controls that we know we have to have for the long-term; that we begin to accumulate some information about whether we have chosen the right option up front before the senior population doubles, in case we guessed wrong, and we could go back and change the way the benefit is offered or how the benefit is paid for while the size of that senior population is 38 million versus when it becomes 70 million and our options are so few?

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. One thing we have both seen is that anything that we do in the Medicare model is usually replicated at some point not too far down the road in the private sector plans that employers provide for their employees. I know that the gentleman is familiar with a frustration that we have had over the years in Medicare, which is their policy as it relates to organ transplants for seniors. Under any organ transplant in the world, the recommendation is that the recipient takes an immunosuppressant drug for the rest of their lives to make sure that the rejection of the organ does not take place, but our current policy in Medicare is that we will pay for the immunosuppressant drug for a 3-year period after the transplant. It is an amazing thing that when seniors go off of the drug, because the cost is high, that maybe in the 4th year or 5th year or 6th year they begin to reject the organ. But what is our health care policy in Medicare? We will actually pay for another transplant, but we will not pay for the immunosuppres- sant drug any longer than 3 years. So it really does make a lot of sense why we are here today talking about a drug plan that even some of the entities that oversee Medicare are not enthusiastically out front leading the parade saying we have to have this benefit and it needs to look like this. Because clearly they cannot make the decisions today to extend drug coverage even in the cases where we know it makes a difference in the quality of life but where we know also the option is another very expensive transplant that makes the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund even shorter than where it is today.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. I have to think that if an administration that is Democrat and a Congress that is Republican can get together and be on the same side of a trade bill with the People's Republic of China, that surely a Democrat President and a Republican Congress could get together in a bipartisan way to design a drug benefit for the seniors and eligible disabled in America. Clearly, the trade deal has to be more difficult to put together. We know, because we are here, that it is not partisan. There are Democrats on one side along with Republicans, and there are Republicans and Democrats on the other side, and at one time the administration was split. To some degree, it is regional across the country. Health care is not regional. Health care is something that we ought to make sure is the best for every person who is eligible. One of the additional tasks that we were given, though, is not only did we have $40 billion to work with over the next 5 years, we were also given that task that says make sure that the long-term solvency of Medicare is protected. Make sure whatever is done does not bust the bank down the road. We know, as seniors know probably more than we do, that health care costs, specifically pharmaceutical costs, are rising. If they have 30 new drugs next year and 11 of them are targeted toward illnesses that seniors are prone to have, we know that our pharmaceutical cost in this country is going to continue to rise; and hopefully, we have taken that into account. That is one of the reasons that we have chosen the private sector to produce the plans because clearly they have a better history of the efficiencies in health care than does the Health Care Financing Administration or any Federal agency, and I would include Congress in that as well.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, let me make this point here. A voluntary plan, a plan where we create the benefit and say to the 38 million seniors and eligible disabled, it is your choice. If you currently have coverage that was extended by an employer in your retirement, you do not have to, you do not have to buy into the Federal plan. It is an option. It is a vast difference in approach from the catastrophic debate of 1993 or 1994 when we, or it may have been earlier than that, when we asked seniors to pay more for something they were already getting for nothing.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I am not sure that there are very many seniors, if any, in the country that would tell us the creation of a new agency whose sole function it is to make sure that the Medicare drug benefit is run effectively and efficiently is a bad thing. But clearly, that is a difference that we have in Washington. It is a difference that will probably exist until this bill becomes law. My hope is that it is this year; that, in fact, that long list of individuals that you talked about, Republicans, Democrats, the President, the bureaucracy, when they say that they are interested in a drug benefit, I hope that they are talking about today, this year, the 106th Congress, not the 107th, because clearly, we know individuals who do not have the capabilities to pay for their prescriptions today, who go without that prescription. As the gentleman and I both know, because we deal in Medicare from a standpoint of the big picture of Medicare, when those individuals make a decision not to take their antibiotics or not to take some drug that has been prescribed, the likelihood is that the result is that they end up in the hospital. When they end up in the hospital, we have a greater cost to our Medicare system than the $100 prescription that they should have taken for 2 weeks. Mr. Speaker, for the first time, I believe that the Congressional Budget Office recognizes there is a savings to making sure that everybody has a benefit. The gentleman and I went through the expansion of Medicare coverage several years ago when we included mammograms, PSAs for prostate cancer, and diabetes daily monitoring, and we now cover those under the normal Medicare coverage. But it took us a long time to convince people that it was actually less expensive to supply a daily monitoring strip for diabetics than it was to pay for amputation or blindness. Put the quality of life aside for a second; the sheer dollars were more beneficial. Bring the quality of life in; and clearly, this is something that we should have done much sooner than 2 years ago. But we are finally there. Now, we are talking about the expansion of an area of Medicare which will give us a new treatment method for the majority of the problems that seniors and the disabled run into, where hopefully, we can eliminate the hospital stay. Hopefully, this is a method of treatment where an individual can take it at home, and we do not have the transportation needs that are a problem with many seniors. Clearly, this is a benefit that we have a responsibility to find a way to get it into law.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. All supported by the lottery. If every State had a plan, we probably would not be here tonight. We would probably have seniors with coverage that needed it. But there is still a greater need, and that is to produce a value for those individuals who do not have the option of insurance. They may have more money, but the plans just are not available. And what we are trying to do is we are trying to create new options through the private sector, which I believe is the single most important thing. We have some disagreements between Republicans and Democrats. They are becoming smaller and fewer. One of the major ones that will continue, though, is currently the Health Care Financing Administration administers the Medicare benefit. I am not sure of very many seniors or health care professionals or hospitals, even my mother understands the problems that exist at the Health Care Financing Administration, because she has been in the hospital lately. The reality is does Congress really want to turn a new benefit that is so vitally important, over 38 million Americans, over to an agency that cannot even figure out what to do with the technological change of intravenous drugs that can now be delivered at home with a self-injection method?

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. And I think it goes up to 225 percent of poverty.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania. The gentleman makes a good point, and that is that if Medicare were a program that we developed today, certainly drug benefits would be part of the coverage given the access that drug benefits have to private sector plans that every employer offers to their employees. But the fact is that in the 1960s, that was not a common part of health care coverage, because very few new pharmaceuticals hit the marketplace, and most of the antibiotics were around for years and years. We worked to reform the Food and Drug Administration, and we started in 1995 and we completed that task, I believe, in 1996 or 1997, with a signature by the President, an agency that controlled 25 cents of every dollar. The reason that we modernized the Food and Drug Administration was we understood the great task that was before them. The FDA is an industry that this year will put $21 billion, and that is with a ``b'', into research and development. We understood that if we could unleash this industry as the human gene was mapped, that through these pharmaceutical companies, we could find cures to terminal and chronic illnesses that currently in our system today we treat and, at best, maintain through a very expensive delivery system. But we owed it in a quality-of-care way to make sure that if we could reach cures for cancer, for AIDS, for diabetes, that we put every incentive in the system to make sure that the private sector invested their money, their time, to hopefully find these breakthroughs. Now, we are on the verge of breakthroughs. This year alone, the FDA will approve over 30 new drug applications. Not every one of them will be a big contributor to savings or quality of care, but we are clearly on the road to new therapies that we have not had in the past. Mr. Speaker, let me say to my colleague that I think it is important that, when we talk about adding a drug benefit to Medicare, most people think of seniors. But we have a large group of disabled Americans who qualify for Medicare benefits. We cannot do a program that leaves them behind. Everybody that is eligible for Medicare has to be included under the umbrella of coverage for pharmaceuticals. It has been very challenging for us as we have designed a program also to make sure that it dovetails with the 14 States that currently offer it. Pennsylvania is a great example. It probably has one of the most generous plans in the Nation.

Mr. BURR of North Carolina. One thing that we learned is that not every employer planned for their retirees' coverage. It may cover a very narrow set of generics or certain areas of the drug industry. We have designed this Medicare benefit to say to employers, if you made a promise to retirees, why do you not look at this new plan which might be better coverage and less money and buy your employees, pay the premium for them to be a part of this, supply the deductible for them. Let them be part of a larger plan where we really leverage the volume of individuals in the Medicare plan by pooling them all into these private sector entities, companies that are willing to create different options because of the size of the pool they are interested in participating, interested in designing a benefit package that might fit the different health care needs.