Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. The point is that we may find that when we do, and hopefully certainly if the Democrats have their choice in the matter, we will have prescription drugs under Medicare, and we probably will find that there is a tremendous savings to Medicare on the hospital side and on the doctor side, and to the Federal Government because of a prescription drug benefit. I have no doubt about it.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit and particularly point out the failures of the Republican leadership in this House as well as the President in that they are not addressing this issue. They are not bringing up the prescription drug benefit. I was interested in hearing what the previous speaker, my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), said about how the Republicans wanted every American or every senior to have the same kind of package that Congressmen have. Well, I have no evidence of that. So far the Republican leadership has talked about bringing up a prescription drug bill for about 2 months in a steady drumbeat that is going to happen this week, it is going to happen next week, it is going to happen next month; and we have no bill. And the suggestions we have seen about what kind of bill they are going to come out with is basically privatizing Medicare so that there is no guaranteed benefit at all. So when my colleague suggests that somehow seniors under the Republican bill are going to get the same kind of benefit that Congressmen have, there is no indication of that whatsoever from the Republican leadership. I have not seen anything to suggest that. Let me say now, once again, I think many of my colleagues know that just before the Memorial Day recess we were told by the Republican leadership in the House that they were going to bring up a prescription drug bill for seniors. It was going to go to committee 2 weeks before the Memorial Day recess. It was going to come to the floor the week before the Memorial Day recess. It never happened. They came back after the Memorial Day recess. We had a week already that we were in session and they said we will bring up the bill this week. Then they said we will bring up the bill next week. Yesterday I heard that they were going to bring up the bill or announce the bill this coming Thursday. No bill yet. I have not seen it. There has been no notice in any of our committees of jurisdiction, the Committee on Energy and Commerce or the Committee on Ways and Means, that we will see this prescription drug bill. So I am calling upon the Republican leadership, let us address this issue. Seniors are hurting. They cannot afford to pay for prescription drugs. A lot of them go without. Bring up the bill. Let us have the debate. Let us see whether or not the statements that my colleague from Florida made have any basis. Everything that I have seen so far about the Republicans and what they are proposing is what I call a ``privatization'' of Medicare. They are saying that they want to bring up legislation that would take some money, almost like a voucher, and throw it to private insurance companies in the hope that they will provide drug-only policies to senior citizens who might be able to purchase such a policy and will get some help with it. We know that privatization, trying to get insurance companies to offer these kinds of drug-only policies, does not work. The insurance executives, their trade group, have told Congress and the committees that they will not work; they do not want to sell that kind of insurance. It is unbelievable why they are just not willing to do what the Democrats have proposed and what most Americans want, which is to expand Medicare, a very good program that we have, yes, a government program, that provides for seniors' hospital care, that provides for seniors' doctors' bills, but does not provide for prescription drug, simply expand Medicare, very similar to what we do with part B, the coverage of doctor bills, and allow people to pay a very low premium per month. They get a good percentage of their prescription drug bills paid for, and it is a guarantee under Medicare, a very good existing program that works for senior citizens. I do not know why the Republicans refuse to deal with this as an expansion of Medicare and instead talk about privatizing and giving some money to insurance companies in the hope that somehow seniors will be covered. That is not what the gentleman from Florida suggested, but that is what we are hearing from the Republican leadership. The problem with Republicans proposal or what they are talking about is it does not address cost, does not address price. The problem right now, not just for seniors but for all Americans, is the cost of prescription drugs continues to escalate, double digit inflation for over the last 6 years. What we need to control in some way are these prices, and what the Democrats have said is let us have something like part B Medicare, like we have for our doctor bills where a person pays a very low premium per month, they have a very low deductible. I think it is a $100 deductible for the course of the year; 80 percent of the cost of their prescription drugs are covered by the Federal Government. Most important, we put a cost mechanism in place that we say under the Democrats' proposal that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is mandated to negotiate and bring prices down because now he is going to represent 30 or 40 million seniors, and he will be able to negotiate better prices. The Republicans do not talk about that. Not only does the Republican leadership want to privatize and just give money to insurance companies, but they do not suggest in any way that they are going to try to bring down the cost. Why in the world would private insurance companies just not try to pass on all the costs and all the money that the prescription drug companies make and simply pass it on to seniors? We have to have some pricing mechanism, and that is what we are demanding. The Republicans need to bring up the bill. Bring up a bill that is comprehensive coverage under Medicare and that has some kind of pricing mechanism.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me say that I do support the legislation and I want to commend my colleagues for addressing this issue today. I was out in Nevada just a week ago, and I was actually on I80. I am not sure I know why a town in Utah would necessarily want to join Nevada; instead, maybe it should be Nevada joining Utah or vice versa. In any case, I understand the importance of the legislation, and both are beautiful States. However, Mr. Speaker, the reason I am taking to the floor right now is to draw attention to the fact that we have a number of suspension bills today, including this one, which I support. However, many of us on the Democratic side of the aisle are very concerned over the fact that we are not bringing up what we consider the most important issue to face this Congress, and that is the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. I have taken to the floor many nights during Special Orders, and today during morning hour, and it disturbs me a great deal to know that the Republican leadership seems to have come to some sort of paralysis, if you will, on the issue of prescription drugs. We all know that our seniors and our constituents are crying out for Congress to address this issue, and yet the Republican leadership, for over 2 months now, has been talking about how they are going to bring up a prescription drug bill. They said they were going to bring it up before the Memorial Day recess, and they did not. They said they were going to bring it up the week following the Memorial Day recess, and they have not. Today I read Congress Daily, and it says GOP Drug Plan to Remain Under Wraps Another Week. There was talk about unveiling a bill this week, and now it looks like it will not be until the following week. But they promise us that they still plan to pass a bill before the July 4 recess. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it anymore. I have heard it so many times that we are going to address the issue of prescription drugs, and the Republican leadership simply has not brought up the bill. They have not brought it up in committee and they have not brought it up on the floor. Most disturbing of all, we hear that the proposal that they are thinking about is really nothing more than throwing some money, like a voucher, if you will, to private insurance companies, rather than providing a comprehensive Medicare drug benefit. We have a very good government program called Medicare where seniors get their hospitalization, seniors get their doctor bills paid for. All we have to do, and this is what the Democrats have been saying, all we have to do is expand Medicare to provide for a prescription drug benefit guaranteed under Medicare. That is what the Democrats have been asking for. The Republicans try to give the impression that they are doing that, but when we look at what they are actually promoting, it is nothing more than giving some money to private insurance companies in the hope that somehow they will cover prescription drugs. The problem is that not only the Republicans are not addressing this issue and not bringing it up, but they are talking about privatizing Medicare. They are talking about perhaps trying to cover a few people maybe that are very low income who do not have prescription drugs now and maybe covering, maybe, at the most, maybe 1 million of the 30 million or so seniors who do not have any kind of prescription drug benefit. It is not fair. It is not fair. The comment was made by President Bush, by the Republican leadership, that we were going to have a comprehensive prescription drug benefit that all seniors were going to be able to take advantage of, and it is simply not what we are getting. The other thing is that the Republicans refuse to talk about the cost issue. The biggest concerns that we hear from our constituents is that we are not addressing the cost of prescription drugs. The prices keep going up. There is nothing that the Republicans have proposed that would actually bring prices down and ease the burden, if you will, on senior citizens or even anyone else in the country. Democrats have been saying that we need to address that. Democrats are saying we would like to have something very much like part B now that pays for doctor bills, a very low deductible, a low copayment, 80 percent of the cost paid for by the Federal Government and giving the power to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate to him that he has to bring costs down by negotiating prices for all of the seniors, 30 million to 40 million seniors. This is what needs to be done and it needs to be done now. I do not want to denigrate in any way this legislation. Point of Order

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, as I said before, my intention is not to denigrate this bill. I believe that this is a very important bill. I understand the comments that were made by my colleague from Nevada earlier about why it is important for these two towns to get together and have the opportunity to join together and perhaps both be part of the great State of Nevada. My only point is that as much as that is an important bill, and I support it, we need to address the issue of prescription drugs as well. I am going to say that it is very upsetting to me and those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle that we continue to see these suspensions come up, which are really not controversial, but the Republican leadership refuses to bring up a prescription drug bill.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if I could be heard on the point of order.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to draw attention to the struggle of journalists and their work toward freedom of information and freedom of the press in Cuba. Cuba was recently ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists as one of the 10 worst places for journalists to work. For the past 7 years, the committee has also listed Fidel Castro as one of the top 10 enemies of the press. Cuba is the only Latin American nation where the press is completely gagged. The Cuban constitution includes a ban on all non-governmental media outlets, giving Castro complete control over all media outlets. After 43 years of power, Castro shows no sign of lessening his stranglehold on the press. Mr. Speaker, last week the New York Times published an article on the work and struggles of Omar Rodriguez Saludes, one of only 100 independent journalists working in Cuba. Independent journalists like Omar who would choose to work outside the government-controlled media outlets are denounced by Castro as counterrevolutionaries and are barred from covering official events. Independent reporters face repeated interrogation and detainment by Cuban authorities, monitoring and interruption of their telephone calls, restrictions on their travel; and they are often placed under house arrest to prevent coverage of certain events. A new tactic of intimidation involves arresting journalists and releasing them hundreds of miles from their homes. To report the news, Omar travels around Havana on a battered child- size bicycle, knowing that he can make his deadline as long as he does not have a flat tire, or if a corner policeman does not confiscate his notes, tape recorder, and camera. Omar writes his articles in longhand, or basically on a 20-year-old typewriter that he and a group of reporters share. He gathers every 2 weeks or so with other journalists in a cramped apartment in Havana's Chinatown, which is the makeshift headquarters of one news agency. He and others await their turn to place a phone call and dictate their stories to several Web sites on Cuban affairs in the United States. And even then, the state-owned telephone monopoly frequently refuses to connect their international calls. Mr. Speaker, Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere where a journalist is currently jailed for his work. In 1997, journalist Bernardo Arevalo Padron was jailed for ``disrespecting'' Castro and another Cuban state council member, Carlos Lage. The charges stem from a series of interviews that Arevalo gave to a Miami-based radio station in which he alleged that while farmers starved, helicopters were taking fresh meat from the countryside to the dinner tables of Castro and Lage. Despite being eligible for parole and in declining health, Arevalo continues to be held in a labor camp. Mr. Speaker, in the United States, we take I think all too often for granted the rights and freedoms of our journalists. We just assume that it is true throughout the world. But it is not true. There are many countries that simply do not allow journalists to practice. I urge my colleagues to join with me to draw attention to and take a stand against oppression of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, in this case Cuba; but there are other countries that have similar problems.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman. She points out as a nurse and as a health care professional one thing that I think we need to stress, and maybe I have not and a lot of us have not stressed, and that is the whole preventive aspect. In other words, here we have all these miracle drugs that have been created in the United States, and if they are available, then people are taking them and they do not have to go to a hospital, they do not have to go to a nursing home. If they are not taking the drugs, a lot of times they are going to end up sicker, and, in the long run, because the Medicare program does provide for hospital care and for doctor care, it ends up costing the Federal Government even more money. Even if you just look at it from a monetary point of view, one of the things we never factor in when we do a cost analysis of legislation is what the long-term savings or the long-term financial implication is. I guess the way we operate with the Congressional Budget Office, they cannot look at the 10 or 20 years over the life of the program to see what the nature of the preventative nature of something is. I forget a lot of times that prescription drugs are a preventative measure, and if people are able to take the drugs, they do not have to be institutionalized.

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman. Again, I appreciate all his efforts, particularly when he brings up the cost issue. I just wanted to say two things to comment on what he said. First of all, part of the problem that we face, and again this was happening during the Memorial Day recess, is that the drug companies start these campaigns where they pretend and try to get the public to think that what the Republicans and the President are proposing are somehow going to be beneficial to them. We have this multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign now by a front group, United Seniors Association, that basically the drug companies have been sponsoring. Ads were running during the Memorial Day recess. I was pleased to see that a couple of weeks ago some of the groups that are concerned about seniors got together to try to expose this. I just wanted to mention, apparently some of these groups filed a formal complaint at the Federal Trade Commission over deceptive advertising. What they point out is that what you are seeing with the drug companies now is that they are using money to basically go on TV and try to tell the American public that the Republican prescription drug proposal is a good one. Then they use money to try to essentially influence Congressmen through their campaigns to support the Republican proposal, and then they do all the advertising in general with regard to the drugs. And who is paying for it? The consumer. It is just a sad thing. It is very hard, I think, as the gentleman says, to explain to our constituents the difference between what the Democrats and the Republicans, are proposing because they hear all these conflicting ads on TV. I just wanted to say briefly and then I will yield to the gentlewoman from New York, what the Democrats have been saying is that we would like to simply add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, to the very successful government program called Medicare that we now have that covers your hospital bills and your doctor bills. What the Democrats are proposing is very similar to what is now called part B of Medicare, which covers your doctor bills. You pay a fairly low premium, I think for your doctor bills now it is about $40 or so a month. The amount that you would probably pay for a prescription drug benefit would be even less than that under the Democratic proposal. You have a very low deductible under part B right now. It is $100 a year. Eighty percent of your costs are paid for by the Federal Government. And there would be a fairly low catastrophic. In other words, after you spend a certain amount of money for that 20 percent copay, all the costs would be paid for by the Federal Government. So we are not reinventing the wheel here. We are basically saying we want a prescription drug benefit under Medicare very similar to what you have now under part B Medicare to pay for your doctor bills. And for those who cannot afford a premium just like part B, the premium is simply waived for those who are below a certain income. And then we have a cost containment measure which says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is mandated to bring the cost down, to bring prices down because he has the power to negotiate for these 40 million seniors that would be part of the Medicare program. I have no doubt that that would go far towards reducing the cost of prescription drugs. It is a very simple thing. This is what we as Democrats are proposing. It is vastly different from the privatization that the Republicans are proposing. With that, I yield to a health care professional, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), who is a nurse by background and who is very familiar with the issue at hand. I thank her for being here.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman. I think what the gentlewoman is stressing is that the whole Republican strategy of essentially privatizing a benefit, in other words saying that we will give some insurance companies some money and hopefully they will come up with a benefit, prescription drug benefit for some seniors, does not make sense. If we look at HMOs, it is essentially what we did sort of on an experimental basis a few years ago, was to say to the HMOs if they cover some prescription drugs benefits, we will give you some money to do it. But they have not been able to do it. It is not uniform. A lot of them have dropped the coverage. I think if anything, the HMO experience shows that we cannot rely on that to provide a real prescription drug benefit. Yet we hear from the Republican leadership constantly that they want to expand HMO options, that HMOs are still the answer to provide a prescription drug benefit, or look at other means of using the private sector. We are not opposed to the private sector, but Medicare is not a private sector program; it is a government program. It works very well, and the logical thing to do is to expand Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit for everyone and address the cost by having the Health and Human Services Secretary basically negotiate to bring costs down.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, just as I finished before the Memorial Day break talking about the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and was very critical at the time about the fact that the Republican leadership in the House had failed to bring up a bill to address the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, I come back here today after the Memorial Day recess and the district work period believing stronger than ever that there is a need to pass such legislation. We had during the course of the Memorial Day recess, a number of Members had forums, opportunities to be back in our respective States and talk to our constituents. When I came back to the floor of the House today for the votes this afternoon, I had so many colleagues come up to me, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, and point out this was the concern that was raised most by their constituents during the Memorial Day recess. I do not understand how the Republican leadership continues to delay and not address this issue and not bring legislation into committee and onto the floor of the House that provides for a prescription drug benefit. We heard over a month ago that this was going to be addressed on the floor before the Memorial Day recess. Of course, that time passed. Now we hear today that they are going to address it next week. I frankly doubt it. I would not be surprised if they never address it. But I certainly intend to call upon them to address it, to basically lay out what their proposal is. But every indication we have had is that their proposal is not something that is going to be beneficial to perhaps anyone. It is not a Medicare benefit. It is basically premised on the idea that we are going to throw some money, almost like a voucher, to private insurance companies and hope that they will come up with some type of Medicare benefit, primarily for low-income seniors, not for the average senior. We hear nothing on the Republican side that would address the issue of cost, which is what most of my constituents were asking about. They cannot afford the prices of prescription drugs, and something needs to be done about that. I have a number of colleagues here tonight that want to address this issue, and I will just start out by mentioning two editorials on the issue. One was in the New York Times, and the other was in the Star Ledger, which is our major daily in the State of New Jersey. The Star Ledger sums up how I feel. This was from May 21, and it talks about the Republican plan and it basically says what I feel about the Republican plan, although we do not have a plan, we hear rumors and press conferences about what they might do. We do not have a bill. The editorial from the Star Ledger is titled, ``An Unrealistic Drug Plan,'' and if I can read parts of it: ``Prescription drug coverage for Medicare is something almost every politician agrees is absolutely necessary. From the beginning, the effort to create a drug program should have been part of a comprehensive effort to update and reform Medicare. The way medicine is practiced with drugs a greater and greater share of treatment options, it is ludicrous to continue Medicare without a prescription benefit. Providing a genuine one means offering more than what the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership have been discussing. From the start, they have looked only for solutions routed in the private sector, and have continued to side step one of the most important issues, how to demand pharmaceutical price breaks worthy of Medicare's massive bargaining power. ``If Congress had ever planned to do the job right, no one would have promised what the House Republican leaders did, a quick fix that they could vote on by Memorial Day. They will not make that unreasonable deadline because Congress cannot decide which part of Medicare will get cut to beef up another part enough to cover drugs. GOP leaders are looking for $350 billion over 10 years for their drug program, a sum that many Medicare advocates say is inadequate.'' I will skip down to the end. It says: ``The President took time on two occasions last week to urge congressional action on a Medicare drug plan. He reminded representatives that they face another election this November, and that their constituents will not be happy if the hottest domestic political issue, Medicare drug coverage, has not been addressed. Since the President set aside only $190 billion over 10 years in his budget for that drug benefit, his remarks sound more like political cover than a pep talk. ``There has been enough talk and enough promises. The thing that has been lacking is candid, determined leadership.'' Mr. Speaker, I could not have said it better. The main goal of our Special Order, for both myself and my colleagues, tonight is to demand that the Republicans address this issue. They say they are going to, and they have not. With that I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman), who has accompanied me many nights on this issue.

Mr. PALLONE. I thank the gentlewoman. The other thing she points out is, why are we here? Why do we come here on the floor of the House after the votes and bring this up? I think there is a sort of dual fear on my part, and I am sure the gentlewoman's and the Democrats in general, that either the Republicans are not going to bring up anything, which is a possibility, because it keeps getting postponed, or, if they do bring something up, that the danger is it is just there for political purposes. In other words, it maybe passes this House, but never passes the Senate because there is no effort to bring up something that everyone can agree on, or it is something that sounds good, but does not really help the average person. Because, as the gentlewoman points out, who is it out there that is complaining to us? Not the very wealthy; not the poor who are on Medicaid and get prescription drugs under Medicaid; but the vast middle class. Your average person, who, right now, because their income is not low enough, they are not eligible for Medicaid and they cannot afford to pay the high prices. They are like 90 percent of the seniors who need this benefit. I have been critical of the Republicans and I have been very partisan about it, because everything I hear is that their proposals they have been airing essentially do not cover prescription drugs for most of that middle income or middle class group. It seems like they are saying, okay, we will give some money, almost like a voucher, to insurance companies, and they will cover prescription drugs for people that are just above the poverty line, or they will see if an HMO will cover it. But, as we know, in many parts of the country, HMOs simply are not available and they have cut back on the level of prescription drugs or how much you have to pay or what kind of benefit you get. So there is a real concern on my part that if we do get a bill, that it not be just a hoax, just a sham; that it be something that is really meaningful in terms of people's lives. So I started this evening talking about two editorials. One was the Star Ledger. But I did not mention the one from The New York Times. I am not going to read the whole thing. If I could just conclude, this was actually on May 28 in The New York Times during the break. The title is ``Paralysis in Health Care.'' It says, ``Early this year Congress and the White House entertained dreams of passing all kinds of health care legislation. President Bush and Senator Kennedy were working on a Patients' Bill of Rights. There was even talk of enacting a prescription drug benefit for the elderly. But such talk has vanished. Lawmakers seem to be betting that voters will not punish them for inaction. But they cannot put off the issue forever. ``A decade ago, when the cost of health care was also soaring, many experts were sure they had a solution, managed care and competition. But HMOs turned out to be no magic. ``Elderly people who came out of the last election with the impression that they would inevitably get help with the cost of prescription drugs may be in for a disappointment. The Bush administration proposed spending less than $200 billion over the next 10 years, a ridiculously low sum given the public's expectations. ``Congress Members had better take the time to listen to voters. They are likely to discover their patience is diminishing. Sooner or later the demand for health care is going to be high on the agenda, and it could happen before the election in November.'' The New York Times is talking the political aspects of it because we know our constituents are demanding a prescription drug benefit. But it is, as I said, important for the Republicans, who are in charge here and have the obligation to, we as Democrats cannot, we do not have the majority, to not only bring up something, but bring up something that is going to be meaningful in terms of seniors' lives. We will go at this every night until we see a proposal brought up and an opportunity to debate this on the House floor, which we have not had so far. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), who probably has drawn more attention to the cost issue than any other Member of Congress. I agree with the various proposals that he has to try to bring prices down.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond to the gentleman from Florida but in my own way, if I could, during my 5 minutes. I just wanted to say I have been here for 14 years. I came in 1988, and before that I was in the State legislature and I was a city councilman, and I was actually shocked when I came down here to see how much deficit spending went on. When we were in the city council, we were in the State legislature, we could not do deficit spending. We had to have a balanced budget every year. That is the way we operate. And I want to say I was almost, I was actually proud of the fact that in those first 6 or 8 years that I was here, that I would see Republican Members of the House, some Democrats, too, but a lot of Republicans who would come down on the floor almost every night during special orders, during one-minutes in the morning and talk about how they had a problem with the deficit and how deficit spending was a bad thing for the country. And I remember some Members had a digital clock that I know would talk about how the deficit kept rising every day, billions of dollars, trillions of dollars. I do not see that anymore on the Republican side of the aisle. I do not see my Republican colleagues coming down here and worrying about the fact that we are $100 billion indebted, now maybe as much as $300 billion in debt this fiscal year. All of the sudden, the concern on the part of the Republican party for the budget and the deficit and fiscal responsibility has almost disappeared from the floor of the House of Representatives, and I cannot believe how irresponsible you have been in the way you have proceeded. The gentleman from Florida talked about a budget. If the gentleman listened to what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said, he said we want to sit down with my colleagues. We know that the situation has changed because of the war against terrorism. We are all very patriotic. I am not going to get into that because there is not anybody here who would not be out there serving their country or helping their country. We are all patriotic. That is not the issue. The fact of the matter is that the Republican leadership in this House is no longer listening to the concern about the deficit, and where we are going with deficit spending. The Democrats are saying one simple thing here today. You put this tax cut into effect, and that is a big part of the reason why now we are going into a deficit, and it is not acceptable to us. It is not acceptable to the American people to keep spending and running up this credit card debt and something has got to be done about it, and you cannot just come here in the last minute and sneak in this language about the debt ceiling and act as if it is not there. It is there and the reason it is there is because you realized that in order to continue this deficit spending you had to pass some resolution or some action that raises the deficit, raises the debt, raises the amount of credit card debt, so to speak. So all we are saying is sit down with us, talk to us about the budget, acknowledge that the budget that you presented a few months ago is not realistic anymore because of the increasing amount of debt, and also acknowledge that if you continue along this path of deficit spending that you are going to dip into the Social Security trust fund, that you are going to dip into Medicare. We are not going to be able to do the things we want to do with prescription drugs, that we are not going to able to do the education programs that the President talks about are so important, none of these things are going to be possible, rather than sit here and talk about who is patriotic. There is not anybody here who is not patriotic. There is not a soul on the floor of this House of Representatives, man or woman, who would not be willing to vote for this bill and for the funding for the war effort. That is not the issue. The issue is the fact that the Republican leadership has reneged and forgotten its responsibility with regard to the Nation's finances, and we cannot keep running up this credit card debt, because if we do, we are not going to be able to fund Social Security, we are not going to be able to fund Medicare. We are not going to be able to do the educational programs that the President is so proud of. He is proud of it, but where is the money? It is not going to be there. So let us have the opportunity to basically go back to the drawing board. Bring back a clean bill. Forget about this sneaky language on the debt ceiling. Let us have an up-or-down vote. We are talking about the debt ceiling. Do not crowd it out with all the talk of the war effort. That is not the issue. We are all willing to spend the money for the war. That is not the issue.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the conference report. As a conferee on title IV, the drinking water security and safety provisions, I am very pleased with the compromise that was reached. Title IV of this bill includes strong provisions that will, first, require community water systems to conduct detailed assessments of their vulnerability to attack by terrorists and of available remedies; and, second, require EPA experts to review the findings of the vulnerability assessments. An FBI warning issued in January of this year notified water officials that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network had considered and investigated the possibility of attacking water distribution systems. That is why my colleagues and I thought it was absolutely critical that the final bioterrorism legislation address this issue. The final bill assures that all vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, including attacks intended to contaminate the water supply and to release chemicals into neighboring communities, are identified and that available safety measures are evaluated. The bill accomplishes this by requiring community water systems serving over 3,300 persons to conduct vulnerability assessments. Each community water system must certify to the administrator of the EPA that they have conducted a vulnerability assessment. The administrator is also required to provide baseline information regarding which kinds of terrorist attacks or other intentional acts are probable threats. Then these vulnerability assessments, once completed, will be sent to the EPA for secure keeping and to help the government understand the threats to our water systems and develop plans to protect our safe drinking water supply. We authorize $160 million through fiscal year 2005 for this goal. I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). The language in title IV is a tremendous improvement over the House-passed bill. I would also like to thank the conferees and the staff on the Democratic side, Dick Frandsen, also Greg Dotson with the gentleman from California's office, and Heather Zichal with my office. This is a good bill. I urge its passage.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity on the House floor this evening to express my concerns regarding the continued transfer of missile technology from China to Pakistan. The Bush administration has reported that the transfer of this highly sensitive information persists even today. Mr. Speaker, in May 1996, China pledged to not provide technological assistance to nuclear facilities in countries such as Pakistan, where such facilities are not safeguarded. However, Chinese authorities did not effectively ban technology transfers which continued to take place after May of 1996. In November 2000, China entered into an agreement with the Clinton administration that prohibited China from transferring missiles or missile technology to specifically Pakistan. Apparently, missile technology transfers continued even after this specific prohibition. Mr. Speaker, what concerns me is that John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Security has said that the Bush administration's policy on the illegal export of missile technology from China to Pakistan has not changed since the Clinton administration, which on November 21, 2000 imposed sanctions on Pakistan for engaging in missile technology proliferation activities with China. But from my understanding, the Bush administration has already waived substantially all of the missile technology control regime sanctions previously imposed against Pakistan citing the authority of S. 1465, which provided the President with increased flexibility in the exercise of his waiver authority with respect to Pakistan. I am extremely disappointed that the Bush administration would publicize that its policy has not changed since the Clinton administration, even though the opposite is true and that the Clinton prohibition was recently waived under President Bush's authority. In addition, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is that missile technology transfers from China to Pakistan be terminated. The current political situation in Pakistan is extremely unstable given their military dictator Musharraf's standing as president and the escalating conflict in Kashmir. Further, there are reports that Osama bin Laden, members of al Qaeda and the Taliban may have shifted into Pakistan. Bin Laden has been known to confer with nuclear scientists in the past. And it is imperative that no further missile or nuclear technology information be filtered into Pakistan for fear of the information getting into deadly hands. Mr. Speaker, the administration has the authority to reauthorize the prohibition of November 2000 that mandates China not transfer missiles or missile technology to Pakistan. I sent a letter to President Bush today, which I would like to include in the Record, Mr. Speaker, requesting that the prohibition be put back in place. The letter is as follows: Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, May 22, 2002. Hon. George W. Bush, President of the United States, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President: I would like to take this opportunity to express to you my concerns regarding the continued transfer of missile technology from China to Pakistan as reported by your administration. In May 1996, China pledged to not provide technological assistance to nuclear facilities in countries such as Pakistan, where such facilities are not safeguarded. However, Chinese authorities did not effectively ban technology information transfers, which continued to take place after May 1996. In November 2000, China entered into an agreement with the Clinton Administration that prohibited China from transferring missiles or missile technology to specifically Pakistan. Apparently, missile technology transfers continued even after this specific prohibition. What concerns me is that John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Security, has stated that your administration's policy of the illegal export of missile technology from China to Pakistan has not changed since the Clinton administration, which on November 21, 2000, imposed sanctions on Pakistan for engaging in missile proliferation activities with China. From my understanding, however, your administration has already waived substantially all of the MTCR sanctions previously imposed against Pakistan, citing the authority of S. 1465, which provided the President with increased flexibility in the exercise of his MTCR waiver authority with respect to Pakistan. I am disappointed that your administration would publicize that its policy has not changed since the Clinton administration even though the opposite is true and that the Clinton prohibition was waived under your authority. In addition, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is that missile technology transfers from China to Pakistan be terminated. The current political situation in Pakistan is extremely unstable given their military dictator Pervez Musharraf standing as President and the escalating conflict in Kashmir. Further, there are reports that Osama bin Laden, members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban may have shifted into Pakistan. Bin Laden has been known to have conferred with nuclear scientists in the past and it is imperative that no further missile or nuclear technology information be filtered into Pakistan for fear of the information getting into deadly hands. Your administration has the authority to reauthorize the prohibition of November 2000 that mandates China not to transfer missile or missile technology to Pakistan. This is a matter of not only security in the South Asia region, but is a national security concern as well. Reinstating this prohibition is the only means to ensuring that the transfer of information will be terminated and that China will in fact put in place punitive measures towards companies that continue to attempt to provide information illegally to China. Therefore, I respectfully request that you use your authority to reauthorize the prohibition on missile technology transfers from China to Pakistan. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Frank Pallone, Jr. Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of not only security in the South Asia region but is a national security concern as well. Reinstating this prohibition is the only means to ensure that the transfer of information will be terminated and that China will, in fact, put in place punitive measures towards companies that continue to attempt to provide information illegally to Pakistan.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to Project Varela, a historic step towards democratic reform in Cuba. On Friday, May 10, over 11,000 citizens of Cuba took a courageous stand and petitioned the Cuban National Assembly to hold a nationwide referendum vote on guarantees of human rights and civil liberties. Named for the nineteenth century priest and Cuban independence hero, Padre Felix Varela, the Varela Project received no funding or support from foreign organizations or foreign governments. This was a grassroots effort by the Cuban people to call on their government to provide them with internationally accepted standards of human and civil rights, including freedom of speech, the right to own a business, electoral reform and amnesty for political prisoners. This is the largest nonviolent challenge to Castro's decade-long, single-party control of the Cuban Government. With its 11,000-plus signatures, the project qualifies under article 88 of the Cuban constitution, which states if the Cuban National Assembly receives the verified signatures of 10,000 legal voters, a referendum on the issue should be scheduled. Unfortunately, Cuban officials have given little hope for the project's success, stating that the national assembly is unlikely to agree to accept the petition and follow through with their constitutional obligation to hold a referendum vote. Mr. Speaker, the ultimate goal of U.S. policy towards Cuba has always been to promote the island's peaceful transition to democracy. Many of my colleagues have varying views on the best approach to achieve the democracy; however, we can all agree on the importance of a grass-roots democratic effort like Project Varela. That is why I plan to introduce, Mr. Speaker, a resolution praising Project Varela and calling on the Cuban government to accept the petition and to hold the referendum. I urge all of my colleagues to join with me in commending the citizens of Cuba for actively exercising their constitutional rights and taking a stand for the rights of all Cubans.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to stress again, as I have many times over the last 2 weeks, the fact that the Republican leadership has not brought up any type of prescription drug benefit. Two or 3 weeks ago we saw members of the Republican leadership in both the committees and various leadership positions say they were going to bring up a prescription drug benefit for seniors. They committed to the fact that that would be in committee last week. It would be reported out to the floor of the House, and would be voted on the floor this week before the Memorial Day recess. All of a sudden we hear nothing about it, no mention of trying to bring any action in committee, no specifics about what they might bring up, certainly no effort to bring anything to the floor. I have said over and over again, this is the biggest crisis facing the American people, particularly seniors. I have seniors every day that call me up and say they cannot afford prescription drugs. What we need to do and what the Democrats have been saying over and over again is that we should simply provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare so that every senior has a guaranteed benefit, and in the same way they have their hospital bills paid for by Medicare, or doctor bills paid for by Medicare Part B, there should be a new Part C or D under Medicare where they pay a very low premium, a very low deductible per month, and the Federal Government pays at least 80 percent of the cost of their prescription drug bills. We need to bring the cost of prescription drugs down. Seniors and people in general, Americans in general, cannot afford prescription drugs because of the increased costs. We have had double-digit inflation with regard to drug prices for the last 6 years. The Republicans refuse to provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors, and refuse to address the issue of cost. If we had all seniors under a Medicare program, as the Democrats have proposed, 40 million seniors, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be able to negotiate reduced prices for prescription drugs because the government would have the negotiating power of all of the seniors in the United States, 40 million strong. We must address the issue of cost and provide a Medicare benefit that includes prescription drugs. I do not understand why my colleagues continue to drag on the issue. Some of the talk is maybe they will provide a low-income benefit for just the poorest seniors, under 10 percent of the seniors. Other times we hear about their proposals to privatize, in other words, take some money and throw it to insurance companies and hope that they will provide some sort of drug-only policy for those seniors who might be able to find an insurance company that will sell them such a policy. But these ideas on the Republican side about throwing some money to insurance companies, trying to help those with low income, they do not get to the real problem and the real solution, and that is a nationwide Medicare prescription drug benefit that every senior has and every senior is guaranteed. We have seen now for 30 years how effective the Medicare program is in terms of taking care of hospital bills and taking care of doctors' bills. Mr. Speaker, why not just expand the program to include prescription drugs. It is a program that works. This is not an ideological problem. We are not trying to figure out who is on the right or left, who is a Democrat or Republican. We want to do something that is practical, that is meaningful for the average American, particularly for the average American senior. The Democrats are going to be up here every day and every night asking the Republicans to bring up a prescription drug benefit, to have a debate and do something about this between now and the end of this session. The number of days that we are going to be here gets shorter and shorter. If this is not brought up soon, certainly after the Memorial Day recess, it is very unlikely that we will see action on it before the end of the session. Bring up a prescription drug benefit, put it under Medicare, make sure that it applies to all seniors and we have a cost mechanism to reduce cost. Anything less than that is not fair to America's seniors.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor this evening to commemorate the 61st anniversary of one of the most critical battles of the World War II--the Battle of Crete. I want to thank Congressman Bilirakis, co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, for organizing today's recognition of the resilience of the Cretan people in May 1941--a resilience that lasted long after the battle ended, and played an instrumental role in the downfall of Hitler and his Nazi regime. In October of 1940, Mussolini's Italy invaded Greece. Shortly thereafter, the British rushed to Greece's aid and quickly sent army and Royal Air Force units to the island of Crete. With Italian troops bogged down in Greece and delaying his brutal campaign of world domination, Hitler sent German troops into Greece and directed the Nazi war machine take control of Crete. On the morning of May 20, 1941 the Nazis began executing Hitler's directive and launched an airborne invasion on a scale unprecedented in history. The Germans dropped some 20,000 troops on the island by air. In addition, the Germans and Italians launched a land invasion, sending troops by sea from the Greek, mainland, which had fallen to the Nazis a few weeks earlier. The ensuing battle put up by the people of Crete and other allied forces against the superior Nazi war machine was one of the most significant of World War II. And though the Germans won the battle and took the island, they did so at the highest possible cost. Karl Student, the Nazi General in charge of the invasion, called the battle ``the fiercest struggle any German formation had ever had to face.'' The German High Command would never again attempt an operation of its size again, and because of the loss of nearly 6,000 paratroopers, the Germans never used the parachute arm of their force again in large scale operations. The unanticipated heroism and ferocity with which the people of Crete fought delayed Hitler's planned invasion of Russia for three months. There were heavy losses on both sides. Strengthened by the knowledge that they were defending a concept--democracy--that had originated from their homeland, Cretan civilians, including women, children and the elderly, joined in the battle against the Nazis, wielding pitchforks and fashioning homemade weapons. By the Battle's end, the Cretans and the Royal Air Force had inflicted so much damage on Hitler's elite 7th Air Division that it was rendered useless to the Nazi effort to conquer the Middle East. The battle, moreover, continued long after the 11 days it took Hitler to finally take the Greek Island. The Cretans organized a resistance movement, which for the remaining four years of the war zealously fought the occupying Nazi force. They suffered horrendously for their resistance; the Germans executed thousands of civilians and randomly decimated entire towns, villages and communities. They did not, however, suffer in vein. The resistance the people of Crete mounted against the invasion forced the Germans to attempt to invade Russia during the oppressive Russian winter--a task that proved to be too much for the Nazis. We here in Congress should do our best to ensure Americans never forget the role the citizens of Crete played in defeating fascism. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to participate in the remembrance of a historical even as important as the Battle of Crete. As the sacrifices the Cretans made 55 years ago demonstrate, we are indebted to Greece not only for giving the world the system upon which our country was founded, but for shedding the blood of their sons and daughters to protect that system as well. I strongly encourage all Americans to join me in honoring Greek-Americans of Cretan decent, and our friends in Greece and Crete, for their contribution to one of the most important battles of the 20th Century.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. That is a good point. I think it also dovetails with what my colleague from Maine said before, and one of the reasons I believe why the Republicans are having difficulty coming up with a plan and probably have postponed this at least until after Memorial Day if not indefinitely is because they have insisted that if they are going to pay for it, they have to take money from other parts of Medicare, in other words, cut back on the amount of money that goes to hospitals, cut back on payments to doctors. They cannot do those things, practically speaking, because hospitals will close, doctors will simply close the door and they have put themselves in this financial box, if you will, that has made it impossible for them to offer any kind of generous plan the way the Democrats feel we need to have it. Before we close tonight, I think we should talk a little bit about what the Democrats have in mind.

Mr. PALLONE. Well, I want to thank my colleague from Maine. I am so glad the gentleman constantly brings up the cost issue, because I think it really is the key. The bottom line is, when my constituents are calling, and they do not even have to be seniors, and they are complaining about their inability to get prescription drugs, it is because of the cost. The cost is the main issue. I think if anyone around here, on the Republican or Democrat side of the aisle, thinks that we are going to be able to address this issue in a meaningful way without reducing costs, they are from another planet. As the gentleman knows, in putting together a benefit under Medicare, which we as Democrats want, we have to be mindful of how much it is going to cost. If you do not find some way for the Secretary of Health and Human Services or the government in general to reduce cost, then the price of the benefit will skyrocket. It has to be an important part of this; otherwise we are kidding ourselves in saying we are going to provide a meaningful benefit. The Republicans have just totally ignored this. Again, they have the press conference in the same way that they say, oh, this is going to be a Medicare benefit, and then we find out it is not; in the same way they say everyone is going to get this benefit, and then we find out it is not, it is maybe just a few low-income people; and then they say, oh, and we are going to lower cost, and there is nothing in it to lower cost. The only thing we have seen so far, which the gentleman has mentioned, was President Bush's pronouncement about the drug discount cards. And that is a sham, first of all, because they are already available. On closer reflection, when asked by some reporters about what the government was going to do, the President actually said we are going to promote the existing cards. He was not proposing some new program or new benefit, just promotion of what drug companies already offer. So what is there? There is nothing. The government is doing nothing. I guess he announced this about a year ago, this discount card promotion; and at that point he said, well, this is just an interim measure until we come up with a prescription drug benefit. But now, when the Republicans talk about cost, they talk about the discount card only. So the interim measure, which was nothing, has now become their permanent solution to cost. And, obviously, it is no solution at all. There are many ways of going about the cost, and I would just like to address a few of them. I think the gentleman's bill is great, and I have cosponsored it, and I think now the gentleman links it, he said, to the cost in other developed countries. Is that how it is done?

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate it. I am amazed how people do not even know about generics. We know, for example, when we talk about generics that in many cases, probably in most cases, there is a generic alternative to some of the name-brand drugs; but the problem is that people, physicians and seniors just get hit and bombarded with all this advertising, they do not even have any education about generics, they do not even know whether there is an equivalent, the fact that it is just as good, they have no knowledge whatsoever. Then, as you say, you get the companies coming in trying to extend the patents and using all kinds of gimmicks to prevent the generics from even coming to market, using procedural tactics and lawsuits and everything else half the time; and if that does not work, then they invite a Member of Congress to sponsor a private bill to just extend the patent. There is getting to be less of that because it has been brought out into the light; but for years that was happening on a regular basis, and it is probably still happening. But I think the ultimate irony is that they get some kind of a tax break for the advertising. Here they are, convincing people that this is the only alternative, which is not true; and then they get to take some sort of a tax break to pay for the advertising. It is unbelievable. If I could maybe just conclude, and the gentleman may want to join me on this, I just wanted to explain again what we have in mind as a Democratic alternative, because I spent a lot of time criticizing what I think the Republican plan is going to be, and my biggest concern is that they have not unveiled it and they have not moved on it. Maybe I will get criticized for saying this, but the way they have handled themselves in the last 2 weeks in promising that they were going to come out with this, and then promising it was going to come to committee and promising it was going to be on the floor before the Memorial Day recess and all of a sudden there is quiet and a big hush, I have not heard anything for a week and the Memorial Day recess is in a couple of days. I am beginning to think they are never going to bring this up in this session of Congress, between now and the end of this session. I hope I am wrong.

Mr. PALLONE. It is an ideological problem, I am convinced of that. They have a problem with Medicare because it is a government-run program, and they do not believe in government-run programs. I always say that when you come down here you cannot be that ideological. You have to be practical about what works, and Medicare works. So we should expand it to include prescription drugs. I hate to say this, and I do not want to cast aspersions, but at least in Maine there is an option to go someplace. If you are in New Jersey, it is too far. And I think that is the unfortunate part of this. We are looking at these options, but they are not options really for most people. The gentleman's bill is great, and I certainly support it and would love to see it enacted, but there are many other ways we could reduce costs that the Republicans have essentially rejected. Obviously, if you have a Medicare benefit, and all 39 or 40 million American seniors are in that program, that gives the Department of Health and Human Services tremendous bargaining power, like we do with the VA or like we do with the military hospitals; and they should be able to negotiate prices that would bring costs down. There are other things. I know that my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), has a bill with regard to generics to try to encourage generics, which is another way of bringing costs down. But we do not see that happening. Republicans do not like that too much. Some do, but the leadership does not, so we do not see anything on that. In the other body a couple of weeks ago, one of our former House Members, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Stabenow), introduced a bill, which I will introduce in the House, which basically says you cannot get any tax credit or deduction on your advertising expenses. In other words, as the gentleman said before, most of the pharmaceuticals say, well, we need to drive up prices in the U.S. because you are paying for the research. Well, I do not know if I agree with that. I do not know why we should be paying for all the research here in the United States and no one else does in these other countries. But right now they are mixing the advertising cost and the research, and they are getting some kind of tax deduction or credit for it; and there is absolutely no reason why they should get that kind of credit or deduction on the advertising portion, which I think is a huge part of it. So her bill says that you cannot get the tax credit or the deduction on the advertising. There are so many ways to reduce costs, but so far we cannot even get the bill in committee at this point. We cannot even get a markup on the bill, so they are not even considering some of these cost measures.

Mr. PALLONE. The catastrophic would also be very low. I will not get into the details, but you have to have a very low catastrophic figure, too. In other words, above a certain point, whether it be $2,000 or $3,000, whatever it is, if your out-of-pocket expenses exceed that, then all your costs would be paid for by the Federal Government. That should be fairly low as well, if it is going to be meaningful, I would say. Again, this is not rocket science here. We are just basically talking about what we already have for your hospital bills, and we are just saying we want to build on a very successful Medicare program to provide coverage for all seniors. There is no magic here. I believe that with the cost factor and the large pool, that the cost probably would not be that much, considering what we are spending on everything else, as our colleague from Massachusetts pointed out. So if I could just conclude and thank my colleagues for participating tonight, the main concern I have right now, to be perfectly honest, is that we do not have any action by the Republicans on this issue. They talked about it 2 or 3 weeks ago and promised they were going to bring it up before Memorial Day. They have not. I disagree with the gentleman in the sense that I would just as soon they bring some bill to the floor and have a debate, because I am fearful we are not going to get to it at all. Clearly when that debate occurs, what the Republican leadership talked about is not acceptable. It is not going to do anything. It is not going to provide any meaningful coverage for anybody. Hopefully we will have the ability as Democrats to bring up a proposal similar to what we outlined today and have a debate on something so important to the American people. I would say we are going to come back here. I know the gentleman from Maine is going to come back here, and we are going to keep talking about this over and over again until the Republicans bring it up and allow an opportunity to address the issue.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the time this evening during this special order to discuss the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Mr. Speaker, I have been to the floor many times in the last few weeks, within the last few months, concentrating on the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the reason I say that is because I get more and more calls every day, every week, every month from my constituents, my senior constituents, complaining about the cost of prescription drugs, the inadequacy of Medicare or whatever kind of health insurance they have to cover prescription drugs, because Medicare generally does not provide for a prescription drug benefit, and most seniors do not have it through any kind of other supplemental health insurance that they might have. The need for an affordable, adequate prescription drug coverage, in my opinion, continues to grow, and I am very concerned about the failure of the Republican leadership in this House to address this concern in any meaningful way. The House Republican leadership presented itself to the media a few weeks ago in a way that would suggest that they intended to bring up a prescription drug proposal. In fact, they promised to mark up the legislation in committee last week and to have it on the floor of the House by Memorial Day, by the Memorial Day recess, which most likely will begin this Thursday or Friday. Obviously, the time has come, and once again promises have come and gone unfulfilled. I do not hear anything from the House Republican leadership about addressing or bringing up a prescription drug proposal this week. The legislation that has been announced for the floor this week is the supplemental appropriations bill, bioterrorism conference, a few other suspensions, but no mention of prescription drugs, even though it was much heralded just a few weeks ago. It makes me believe that the Republican leadership does not want to even address this issue, but what concerns me even more is that when they do talk about it, and again, they are not talking about it much right now, what they seem to be planning to introduce is a proposal that they claim is under Medicare and that will cover all seniors but, in reality, is not under Medicare. It covers very few seniors and is administered in a way to give money to private insurance companies in the hope that they will insure seniors, and I do not think that will ever happen. I do not think that will ever occur. Based on what I know about the GOP prescription drug proposal that was discussed, not in any detail a couple of weeks ago, but what was discussed at a press conference, I think that there is very little likelihood that their proposal would provide any kind of meaningful relief in terms of prescription drug coverage for most of the 30 million seniors who have no prescription drug coverage. It appears that what they have in mind is trying to provide a benefit for very low income seniors, maybe about 6 percent of the seniors, but even if that were to be the case, even if they did try to pass such a bill, I think because of the way they go about it, as I said before, in just trying to throw some money to private insurance companies and hoping that they will take care of these very low income seniors is not likely to even help those very low income seniors that maybe they are trying to help. The problem is that when my colleagues talk about privatization, when they talk about trying to give money to insurance companies so that they offer a drug-only, a prescription drug policy, most of the health insurance companies will tell us that they do not want to provide that type of coverage. In other words, they tend to provide coverage that is more broad-based, not just for prescription drugs, and we even had representatives of the Health Insurance Association of America testify before the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means in the last session of Congress when the Republican leadership tried to bring up a similar type of privatized drug-only policy for seniors. We even had the representatives of the Health Insurance Association of America say that they wanted nothing to do with this kind of a proposal. What I would like to explain in a little bit of detail, if I could, is that right now when someone has Medicare, Medicare covers every senior, about 40 million seniors, and they have their hospitalization covered in Part A. They have their doctor bills covered in Part B if they choose to participate. They pay a premium of maybe $44, $45 a month for their doctor bills and 80 percent of their doctor bills are paid for by Medicare but they can go to any doctor if they are in a traditional program. If they are not in an HMO, they do not have to go any HMO, they can go to any doctor, and 80 percent of the doctor's care is covered. What the Democrats have been saying is that the easiest way to expand Medicare or to provide a prescription drug benefit is to simply expand Medicare and add another part, maybe call it Part C to Medicare and use Part B for their doctor's care. As an example, in other words, have a very low premium that they pay per month, $25, $30, $40, then say that the Federal Government will pay, if they use Part B, as an example, about 80 percent of the cost of their prescription drug coverage, very low deductible, very low copayment, just like Part B, and all seniors get a prescription drug benefit, and most of it is paid for by the Federal Government. It is a very simple concept. It is what Medicare does now, as I said, with doctor bills, but what we are finding is that the Republicans do not like that. They never liked Medicare from the beginning. When Medicare was passed back in the 1960s, most of the Republican Members of the House then voted against it, and I think from an ideological, rather than a practical perspective, most of the people, most of the Members who were in the leadership of the Republican party do not like Medicare. So they do not want to expand Medicare, a program they do not like in order to cover prescription drugs, and give all seniors a guaranteed prescription drug benefit. Instead, they are trying, through their ideological mischief, to come up with some kind of program outside of Medicare where they would throw money to private insurance companies and hope that they will be able to provide policies for low income seniors. The problem is it does not work, and last week, Mr. Speaker, there was a report that was put out by Families USA, which is one of the senior organizations that is the biggest advocate for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, and I am not going to read the whole report, but I just wanted to run through sort of a summary of what it said about trying to cover prescription drugs through private insurance or through privatization. I am reading from the report from last week. It says, ``The report is failing America's seniors. Private health plans provide inadequate Rx drug coverage. The United States House of Representatives will soon consider legislation to provide prescription drug coverage for America's seniors. The proposal that will be considered, developed by Republican Ways and Means Committee Chairman William Thomas, relies on private health insurance companies to provide drug coverage and to bear the financial risk entailed. Insurance companies will be expected to offer drug only insurance policies that cover no other health services. ``In its reliance on the private sector to provide coverage, the pending bill is similar to H.R. 4680, the Medicare Rx 2000 Act which passed the House of Representatives on a partisan basis during the last Congress. At that time when H.R. 4860 was being considered, the insurance industry, acting through the Health Insurance Association of America, made clear that it had no intention of offering drug-only policies. ``The industry reasoned that drug-only insurance policies would be subject to adverse risk selection, that is, they would disproportionately attract consumers who have existing health conditions or are sick or disabled. As a result, the policies would be very expensive and would have few takers among younger, healthier Medicare beneficiaries.'' I do not want to go through the whole thing, but I want to read a little more here. It says, ``The reliance on drug-only policies is not the only troubling feature of the pending Republican proposal. In the traditional Medicare program, beneficiaries can count on a uniform benefit no matter where they live. ``As the following analysis demonstrates, relying on private insurance companies to deliver drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, rather than incorporating a drug benefit into the Medicare program, virtually guarantees that coverage will be uneven in availability, cost and value.'' Now, the last point that this Families USA report makes is that the problem with privatization in terms of providing drugs already exists when we look at the Medicare Plus choice, the HMO program, under Medicare. It says in the report, ``This unevenness is common both in the Medicare Plus choice program under which HMOs offer Medicare coverage, often with some drug coverage, and in medigap policies which provide supplemental coverage for seniors. Experience under Medicare Plus choice and medigap policies shows that those that offer prescription drugs are very expensive, are not always available and, when available, offer vastly different coverage in their costs from one geographic area to another. In addition, the coverage diminishes and the prices increase significantly over time. Because of these limitations, such private insurance policies provide an unreliable mechanism for delivering much- needed prescription drug coverage to America's seniors.'' There is a whole report, Mr. Speaker, about 20 pages here, where they have done an in-depth survey to show why the privatization does not work. Yet we hear the Republicans talk about it like it is the panacea for tomorrow and for all the problems that seniors have with prescription drugs. I do not understand where the Republicans are coming from other than that ideologically they are in some sort of straitjacket that determines that they cannot add a Medicare benefit because of some right-wing ideology against government. I see that one of my colleagues is here who has been out in front on this issue, particularly on the rising cost of prescription drugs which I have not even mentioned so far tonight. So I would yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Maine.