Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, for the past several years, Congress has been working in a bipartisan way to write the rules of the digital economy. We have made significant progress on Internet taxes, privacy, encryption and the Y2K problem. Now is the time to move forward on rules for electronic signatures. The bill before us today, S. 761, is based on the premise that it's better to be online than waiting in line. A growing number of Americans who now have to wait in line for things like a driver's license or construction permit, could see their business expedited by a few clicks of their mouse. We live in an increasingly mobile society, where young people get recruited for jobs clear across the country. They may need to move in a hurry but don't have the time, for example, to pack up a home in Virginia and look for another one in Portland, Oregon. With the Internet, they can shop for a house in another town. With this electronic signatures bill, they can pretty much conclude the whole transaction of purchasing the house online. The legislation puts electronic and paper contracts and agreements on equal footing legally. Like the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the bill would establish technological neutrality between electronic and paper contracts and agreements. This means consumers will enjoy the same legal protections when purchasing a car or home online as when they walk into an auto dealership or real estate office and sign all the documents in person. We worked long and hard to make sure that the system established here benefits consumers who wish to receive information electronically without treating those without computers as second class citizens. This legislation does not address the issue of electronic records because this matter deserves more thorough study and discussion. I intend to work with all interested parties on this--from consumer groups to financial services firms--over the course of the coming months to craft legislation that will extend the benefits of this measure to electronic records in a way that continues consumer protections. Commercial transactions have traditionally been governed by State laws which are modeled on the Uniform Commercial Code. Forty-two states have some law in place relating to digital authentication. But differences between and among these laws can create confusion for e- entrepreneurs. The unstoppable growth of electronic commerce has led the States recently to develop a Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, or UETA (as part of the Uniform Commercial Code), to serve as a model for each State legislature in developing further its own electronic signatures law. However, only one State--California--has enacted a UETA. The purpose of this legislation is to provide interim Federal legal validity for electronic contracts and agreements until each state enacts its own UETA. This means e-commerce will not be hamstrung by the lack of legal standing. I would like to take a minute to run through the highlights of S. 761: Technological neutrality: It allows electronic signatures to replace written signatures. In interstate commerce a contract cannot be denied legal effect solely because of an electronic signature, electronic record or an electronic agent was used in its formation. Choice of technology: It does not dictate the type of electronic signature technology to be used; it allows the parties to a transaction to choose their own authentication technology. Consumer protections: It protects consumer rights under State laws; it does not preempt State consumer protection laws. It assures that consumers without a computer are not treated as second class citizens. If a consumer buys a car online, the consumer cannot be forced to use the computer to receive important recall or safety notices but retains the option to continue to get such notices through the mail. No State preemption: Its provisions sunset when a State enacts UETA. Excludes matters of family law: It specifically excludes agreements relating to marriage, adoption, premarital agreements, divorce, residential landlord-tenant matters because these are not commercial transactions. Report on Federal statutory barriers to electronic transactions: It requires OMB to report to Congress 18 months after enactment identifying statutory barriers to electronic transactions and recommending legislation to remove such barriers. In conclusion, M. President, I wish to acknowledge the leadership of Sen. Abraham in moving this legislation forward. He and I have teamed up successfully on other legislation, and it was a pleasure to work with him and his tireless staff on this bill. I also want to recognize the contribution of Senator Leahy, particularly with regard to the consumer protection provisions, as well as the effort of Senator Hollings. It took a bipartisan team to get this bill through the Senate today, and I look forward to continuing to work with this team as we go to conference with the House on S. 761. I ask unanimous consent that my statement be printed in the record following Senator Abraham's statement on the passage of S. 761.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor of the Senate on a number of occasions recently to talk about the issue of prescription drugs for the elderly. I think there is a particularly relevant point to make this afternoon given the very extensive press coverage we have seen on this issue in recent days. Over the weekend, David Rosenbaum in the New York Times had an excellent article on the issue. In the last couple of days, Time magazine had another very lengthy piece on the question of prescription drugs for seniors. And both of these articles ultimately make the point that Congress probably is not going to be able to agree on legislation during this session. The authors offer considerable skepticism about the ability of Congress to come together on a very difficult issue. Both of them, to some extent, go off into what I think are secondary questions--the questions of the role of the Internet, and the question of patents on drugs. Those are important matters. But what is central and what the Congress needs to do on a bipartisan basis is pass legislation that would make it possible for frail and vulnerable older people to get insurance coverage that would provide for their medicine. For example, if you are an elderly widow who is 78, maybe having early signs of Alzheimer's, and you spend more than half of your combined monthly income of Social Security and pension on prescription medicine--those are the kinds of letters that seniors are sending to me--it is not going to help you a whole lot to get a 10- or 15-percent discount because you shop over the Internet. Certainly, the role of the Internet in prescription drugs is going to be important. There will be a lot of issues. But to provide relief for the Nation's older people, what Congress needs to do on a bipartisan basis is pass legislation that provides insurance coverage making it possible for older people to pay these big bills. Patent issues and the question of the Internet are matters that are important, but what is needed is legislation that provides real relief. Part of the effort to win bipartisan support for prescription drug legislation is coming to this floor and, as the poster says, urging seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills. Send them to each of us here in the Senate in Washington, DC. I intend to keep coming to the floor of the Senate and actually reading from these letters. I have three today that I think tell an important story. One is from a senior citizen in Medford, OR, in my home State. Another is from a senior citizen from Grants Pass, OR, and a third is from a senior citizen in O'Brien, OR, all of which reflect the kind of concerns I know are out there. Hopefully, as seniors learn about our campaign and see that we are urging them to send us copies of their prescription drug bills, it can help bring about bipartisan support for legislation in the Senate. I am very proud that I have been able to team up in recent months with Senator Olympia Snowe on bipartisan legislation. I have been of the view that nothing more can happen in Washington, DC, unless it is bipartisan. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is a bill that uses marketplace forces and unleashes the forces of the private sector in an effort to make medicine more affordable for the Nation's older people. What is sad is that our elderly are in effect hit by a double whammy. Millions of them can't afford their prescriptions. Medicare doesn't cover medicine. It hasn't since the program began in 1965. On top of the fact that seniors don't have Medicare coverage, when they walk into a pharmacy--I see our friend from New Hampshire, our colleague who has a great interest in health care. As he knows, when a senior walks into a drugstore in New Hampshire, Oregon, or Kentucky, and can't pay for their prescription medicine, in addition they are subsidizing the big buyers of prescription drugs. The HMOs and the health care plans are in a position to negotiate a discount. They get a break on their prices. The seniors, people who are spending half their monthly income on prescriptions, are, in effect, subsidizing those big buyers. The bipartisan Snowe-Wyden legislation, fortunately, has been able to generate a lot of interest in the Senate. Senator Snowe and I are proud to have the support. For example, more than 54 Members of the Senate--more than half the Senate--are now on record saying they would support a tobacco tax to pay for prescription drug benefits for older people. That strikes me as appropriate. Medicare spent more than $12 billion last year picking up the costs of tobacco-related illnesses, and more than 50 Members of the Senate are now on record as saying they would be willing to support additional funding to help the vulnerable seniors from whom we are hearing. Let me read a little bit from some of these letters because I think they sum it up. One I received in the last couple of days from Grants Pass says: No way can I afford to pay for my medicine. I did get a refill on Pepcid. That is an important medication this elderly woman is taking now in Grants Pass, OR. I do hope you can do something to help us seniors. When she writes, ``No way can I afford to pay for my medicine,'' that essentially sums it up. We can talk about people buying prescription drugs over the Internet; we can talk about the patent issue, both involving substantial sums of money. Whatever that person needs in Grants Pass--and the letter goes on to say she has no insurance coverage for her medicine--seniors need legislation that actually provides coverage through the insurance system to help pay for prescription drugs. Another letter comes from Medford, OR. We can see the stack of bills going to a pharmacy in Medford, Southern Oregon Health Trust Pharmacy. This individual has spent $1,664 recently on prescription drugs in Medicare. She is sending bills to our office. Unfortunately, she doesn't get any help through the various insurance coverages she has. This is representative of what we have been hearing. She also goes on to point out that this large stack of bills she sent me does not even include some of the over-the-counter drugs she is taking such as ibuprofen. These cases illustrate very well why our country cannot afford not to cover prescription medicine. All of these articles, including Time magazine, are always questioning whether the Nation can afford to cover prescription medicine. I have contended for some time now we cannot afford not to cover prescription medicine. These bills I have been reading from on the floor of the Senate show seniors can't afford drugs that help to lower cholesterol, help to lower their blood pressure. These are drugs that help older people to stay well. Prescription drug coverage for seniors has been a priority ever since my days with the Gray Panthers before I was elected to Congress. Frankly, it is much more important today than ever because these drugs that so many seniors write that they cannot afford today help seniors to stay well. The variety of anticoagulant drugs that help to prevent strokes, as I have commented on the floor of the Senate in the past, might cost $1,000 a year for an older person to buy them to stay healthy. Compare that to the costs incurred if a senior suffers a stroke. If a senior cannot get an anticoagulant drug to help stay healthy and avoid a stroke, that senior might incur expenses of more than $100,000. The question for the Senate is, Are we going to help frail and vulnerable seniors with prescription drug coverage that will cost just a fraction of the expenses that will be incurred through Medicare Part A, the hospital portion, and Medicare Part B, the outpatient portion, if the senior cannot get help and ends up getting sick and, very often, incurring extraordinary expenses? The third letter I read comes from a woman in O'Brien, OR. She has spent more than $2,000 through November of 1999 on her prescription drugs, and just in recent days she has taken on a job in hopes she will be able to pay for her prescriptions. She is 78 years old. At present, she has her Social Security and Medicare. She now has taken on a small job in hopes she will have the funds to pay for her prescription medicine. She writes that she hopes the Snowe-Wyden legislation becomes law. Other colleagues have different approaches. We appreciate that. What is important is we move forward together. Let's show the authors of all these recent articles in Time magazine, in the New York Times, and various other publications that are skeptical about whether the Congress can tackle a big issue such as this; let's prove them wrong. Let's show, in spite of a fairly polarized political climate in America today, when there is an important program, this Congress can come together. I will keep coming to the floor and urging seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills. The poster lays it out: Send their bills to their Senator in Washington, DC. The Snowe-Wyden legislation, SPICE, for the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act, is a bill that, on a bipartisan basis, can be supported in the Senate. If other colleagues have different ideas, let's get them out on the table. Let's come up with a marketplace approach to holding down the costs of medicine. These bills show access to coverage is very key, but holding down the costs of medicine is very key as well. There is a right way and a wrong way to hold down those costs. The right way is to use a model such as the health care system for Members of Congress. That is what is behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation that provides choice, competition, and marketplace forces for holding down medicine. There is a wrong way--the various approaches that call for price controls. The real danger behind price controls is that the costs for anybody who is not in the price control group will be shifted on to other Americans who are having difficulty paying for medicines as well. It would not be a particularly useful thing for the Senate to come up with a price control regime for folks on Medicare and then have the costs shifted over to a divorced woman who is 27 years old with two children who is working her head off to try to help her family and help them pay for expenses and then her bills would go up because costs would be shifted to her. I intend to keep coming back to the floor of the Senate and reading from these bills. Today I have read accounts from Medford, from Grants Pass, and from O'Brien. Seniors cannot afford today to cover prescription drugs. When public opinion polls are taken, coverage of prescription drugs for older people is now one of the top two or three concerns in America--not just for seniors but for all Americans; certainly for the sandwich generation. Perhaps a young couple in their forties who have to try to provide some assistance to a parent who could not afford prescription medicine is following this issue. It is not just a seniors' issue; it is an issue for families; it is an issue for the quality of life of our country. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is a bipartisan bill where more than 50 Senators have already indicated they will support the funding mechanism in prescription drug coverage as one way to proceed. I am sure our colleagues have other ways to go. But what is important is to show the skeptics across this country who are writing in magazines and saying in news reports that nothing can be done that we can come together on a bipartisan basis and provide real relief for the Nation's older people. I hope seniors will, as this poster indicates, continue to send copies of their prescription drug bills to us in the Senate, each of us in Washington, DC, because I intend to keep coming back to this floor again and again until we can secure passage of this legislation. I do not want to see the attention of the Senate diverted to questions of the role of the Internet and patents and the variety of matters because, while they are important, they do not go to the heart of what is needed in this country. What is needed in America for the millions of seniors who are spending half of their income on prescription drugs--and that is what I have been describing on the floor of the Senate--is insurance coverage. They need coverage which will pick up that part of their insurance bill that goes for prescription drugs. That is what the Snowe-Wyden legislation does on a bipartisan basis. We are going to keep coming back to the floor of this body to talk about the need for prescription drug coverage for the elderly. There are bipartisan proposals to do it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk, as I have on several occasions recently, about the issue of prescription drugs and the Nation's elderly. You certainly can't open up a major publication these days without reading about this issue. The New York Times, on Sunday last, had an excellent article. Time magazine, which came out in the last couple of days, had a lengthy discussion of prescription drugs and seniors. These are all very captivating discussions, but almost all of them end with the author's judgment that nothing is going to get done in Congress about this critical issue. They go on and on for pages and, finally, the author winds around to the conclusion that this issue has been tied up in partisanship and the kind of bickering that you see so often in Washington, DC. There you have it. Case closed. Lots of arguing but no relief for the Nation's older people. Lots of politics but no results. So what I have been trying to do, in an effort to break the gridlock on that issue, is to come to the floor of the Senate and talk specifically about a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Snowe-Wyden bill, which has received what amounts to a majority of Senators' support at this point because they have already voted for the funding plan that we envisage, and to talk about how the Senate could come forward with real relief for the Nation's older people and do it in a bipartisan way. As part of the effort to break the gridlock, as this poster next to me indicates, I hope seniors will send to each of us copies of their prescription drug bills. As a result of seniors and their families being involved in this way, this will help to bring about a bipartisan effort in the Senate and actually win passage of the legislation and bring about relief for older people. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is called the SPICE bill, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It ought to be a subject Members of Congress know something about because the Snowe-Wyden bill is based on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. It is not some alien, one-size-fits-all Federal price control regime but something that offers a lot of choice and alternatives and uses the forces of the marketplace to deliver good health care to Members of Congress and their families. Senator Snowe and I have essentially used that model for the approach that we want to take in delivering prescription drug benefits for the Nation's older people. Fifty-four Members of the Senate, as part of the budget resolution, said they would vote for a specific way to fund the legislation. What I have tried to do is come to the floor on a number of occasions recently and as a result of folks reading this poster and sending copies of their prescription drug bills to us individually in the Senate in Washington, DC, I hope to be able to show the need in our country is enormous and to help catalyze bipartisan action. Tonight, in addition to reading briefly from some of the bills I have received in recent days, I am going to talk a little bit about how it is not going to be possible to solve this problem unless the approach the Senate devises, in addition to being bipartisan, addresses the question of affordable insurance. For example, this Time magazine article that came out today--a very interesting and very thoughtful piece and I commend the author for most of what is written--talks about the role of the Internet. It says there are going to be a variety of proposals debated on the floor of the Senate. But with the Internet, people are going to just try to go out and buy prescription drugs and it goes into various details about how seniors can buy prescriptions on line. I was director of the Gray Panthers at home in Oregon for about 7 years before I was elected to the Congress. Suffice it to say, I can assure you that some of the most frail and vulnerable older people in our country are not going to be able to buy their prescriptions on line the way Time magazine envisages. But perhaps even more important, if an older person is spending more than half of his or her Social Security check on prescription medicine--and I have given example after example in recent days of older people in our country, at home in our States. I am very pleased my friend and colleague, Senator Smith, is in the chair because he has talked often about the need for bipartisan action on this issue to help seniors. I think both of us would agree that if you have an older person who is spending more than half of their monthly income on prescription drugs--more than half of their Social Security checks, for example, and a lot of them get nothing but Social Security--those folks are going to need decent insurance coverage. They need to be in a position to get insurance coverage that will pick up a significant hunk of their prescription drug costs. The Time magazine article tells you all about buying drugs over the Internet. But a lot of those senior citizens with an income of $11,000 or $12,000 a year--a modest income--when they are spending more than half of their income on prescription drugs are not going to find an answer on the Internet. They are going to need decent insurance coverage. The Snowe-Wyden legislation envisages--is a detailed plan, it is a specific plan, a bipartisan plan, S. 1480--and lays out a system that involves marketplace choices and competitive forces in the private sector. Seniors will be in a position to have real clout when it comes to purchasing private insurance. I think what is so sad about the situation with respect to our older people and prescription drugs is they get hit by a double whammy. Medicare doesn't cover prescription medicine. That is the way the program began back in the middle 1960s. Second, a lot of the big buyers, health maintenance organizations, or a plan, can go out and negotiate a discount. And the senior who walks into a pharmacy in our home State in Coos Bay or Beaverton or Pendleton or some part of our home State, ends up, in effect, paying a premium because the big buyers are able to negotiate discounts. It is critical that seniors be in a position to get more affordable private insurance for their prescription medicine. Under the Snowe-Wyden legislation for seniors on a modest income, other than a copayment or deductible, the legislation would pick up the entire part of that senior's insurance premium that covers prescription drugs. That is something that will help that frail older person. It is not going to be the Internet that is going to be a panacea for that older person but legislation that helps that elderly widow or retired gentleman afford private insurance coverage is something that will be of help to them. That is what the Snowe-Wyden legislation is all about. Tonight, I want to read from a few letters I have received in the last couple of days. And I will continue in the days ahead as the Senate wraps up--we hope it won't be too many more days ahead--to bring these kinds of cases to the floor of the Senate in an effort to try to see the Senate come together in a bipartisan way and provide some relief for older people. One elderly couple, for example, wrote me about their medical situation, reporting that both had recently had heart surgery and one of them, in addition, had a stroke. They are taking blood-thinner drugs. They are taking important cholesterol-lowering drugs--Lipitor-- and drugs for lowering blood pressure. They are breaking that particular medicine in half because they cannot afford their prescriptions, and then they are taking a drug which serves as an antidepressant. This couple has a combined income of around $1,500 a month. For the month of October alone, they spent $888 on just the drugs I mentioned. Over half of their monthly income is going for prescription medicine. I don't believe there is going to be relief for that elderly couple over the Internet. They are not going to be able to deal with that financial predicament where they spend over half of their monthly income on prescription medicine through some ``www'' opportunity on the Internet. They are going to need decent insurance coverage. That is what the bipartisan Snowe-Wyden legislation tries to provide. The second case I would like to touch on tonight comes from our home State. An elderly woman wrote me to report that in recent days she spent more than $800 on her prescription medicine. She writes: ``I'm on a fixed income. It's just getting harder and harder. Medicare help with prescriptions is a real need.'' Finally, a third letter that I think sums up the kind of predicament that a lot of seniors in our State are facing comes from Beaverton where an elderly couple is trying to make ends meet essentially with just Social Security and a little bit of help from family. When they are finished paying for their prescription drugs--this is an elderly couple in Beaverton, OR, in our home State--they have $107.40 left over to live for the month. Just think about that. It is not an isolated kind of case. Think about what it has to be like for an older couple to have $107 left over for living after they have paid for their prescription medicine. In the last sentence, this particular elderly woman just asked a question: ``Can you help?'' I think that really sums it up. I think the American people want to see if the Senate, instead of the usual tired routine of bickering and arguing and inaction, will produce a bipartisan plan to provide real relief. What I find so striking, and why I am so proud to have teamed up with the Republican Senator from Maine on this bipartisan issue, is that when I am asked at home--I had a town meeting a couple of days ago on the Oregon coast. And the President often has the same kind of community session. I was asked about whether the Nation can afford to cover prescription medicine. My answer is, if you are reading these bills, that America cannot afford not to cover prescription medicine because these drugs, as in the case I described initially, are drugs that keep people well. They help people deal with blood pressure. They help people deal with cholesterol. These are drugs to help keep people healthy. If you keep them healthy, they don't land in the hospital where they rack up those huge charges for Part A of Medicare. I cited repeatedly these anticoagulant medicines. Evidence shows that for perhaps $1,000 a year, seniors could get a comprehensive program of anticoagulant medicines that can help prevent strokes. We have seen again and again that if you can't get this kind of preventive medical help and you incur a stroke, it costs more than $100,000 to pick up the cost. That is really the choice, it seems to me, for the Senate. I think the Presiding Officer of the Senate and I have shown in our home States that it is possible on a whole host of issues, frankly, issues that a lot of people think are more divisive than even prescription medicine, to come together in a bipartisan way. I am hopeful the Senate can show that as well. We have seen one poll after another demonstrating that the American people want Congress to provide real relief. In the last couple of weeks, I have seen several polls which indicate that helping frail and vulnerable seniors with prescription drug coverage through Medicare is one of the top two or three concerns for this country. Instead of these articles that we are seeing coming out of Time magazine and New York Times and others saying we probably won't be finished, and there won't be an effective answer, I would like to see the Senate show we can really follow through and produce for the older people of this country. In the days left of this session--we all hope there won't be many more--until we get comprehensive bipartisan legislation that provides the elderly real relief, I intend to keep coming to the floor of the Senate to talk about this issue. I hope folks who are listening tonight will send in copies of their prescription drug bills. This poster says it all: ``Send in your prescription drug bills.'' Send them to each of us in the Senate in Washington D.C. I can tell you the bills that are coming into my office--they are really coming in now as a result of our taking the opportunity to discuss this issue on the floor of the Senate--say that this is an urgent need. There are people who write who are conservative. There are people who write who are liberals, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and all across the political spectrum who say: Get the job done. We are not interested in the traditional bickering and fighting about who gets credit, whose turf is being invaded, and which particular parochial kind of issue is being placed ahead of the national wellbeing. This Nation's seniors and this Nation's families want us to come together and deal with this issue. I intend to come back on the floor of the Senate again and again until the Senate does. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am introducing today legislation that will allow the Forest Service to sell an abandoned facility to the city of Bend, OR, to be used for recreational purposes. The idea for this legislation came from the citizens of Bend themselves. They worked with Forest Service personnel in the adjacent Deschutes National Forest and crafted a win-win solution to different problems. What others might have seen as a problem, namely the shutdown of the Pine Nursery facility, they saw as an opportunity--the opportunity to provide a recreational complex for the community and to generate funding for needed facilities in the Deschutes Forest. This legislation would allow them to implement this creative idea. Faced with the inevitable sale, trade or development of the Forest Service's Bend Pine Nursery, which supplied seedlings for five decades of reforestation work, last spring I met with representatives from the Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District; the city of Bend; the Bend School District; folks from the soccer and Little League baseball programs; and others who are concerned about central Oregon's youth and adults having adequate recreational facilities. What these folks asked me to do was very straightforward: if the Forest service is going to sell, exchange, or otherwise develop the former Bend Pine Nursery, the community wanted the opportunity to acquire the property for the development of a sports complex, playing fields and other facilities. My bill simply creates an opportunity for the Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District to work with the people of Bend on whether or not to purchase this property. It does not require purchase by the community, it simply gives the community a right of first refusal to buy the property at fair market value. At the same time, this legislation allows the Deschutes National Forest to address its need for a new administrative site. Currently, the Deschutes pays approximately $725,000 per year in annual lease and utility costs. This is \3/4\ of a million dollars that is not being spent on the ground, improving the quality of Deschutes National Forest facilities, lands and resources. It is a credit to the leadership of the Deschutes National Forest that they seek a way out from this unnecessary, unproductive and recurring expense. My bill will enable the Deschutes to use the money raised from the sale of the nursery and other surplus properties in Oregon toward the acquisition--and ownership--of a new administrative site. The cost of a new building is estimated to be about $7 million; as my colleagues can see, the forest is paying almost a million dollars in rent each year. In the words of an ad from today's ``Bend Bulletin'', and I quote: ``Tired of throwing away thousands on rent? Think you can't buy? think again. If you're stuck in the renter rut, try it our way.'' I look forward to a hearing next year on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management, of which I am ranking member. I welcome my colleague, Mr. Smith, as an original cosponsor of this innovative bill I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am introducing today legislation that will allow the Forest Service to sell an abandoned facility to the city of Bend, OR, to be used for recreational purposes. The idea for this legislation came from the citizens of Bend themselves. They worked with Forest Service personnel in the adjacent Deschutes National Forest and crafted a win-win solution to different problems. What others might have seen as a problem, namely the shutdown of the Pine Nursery facility, they saw as an opportunity--the opportunity to provide a recreational complex for the community and to generate funding for needed facilities in the Deschutes Forest. This legislation would allow them to implement this creative idea. Faced with the inevitable sale, trade or development of the Forest Service's Bend Pine Nursery, which supplied seedlings for five decades of reforestation work, last spring I met with representatives from the Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District; the city of Bend; the Bend School District; folks from the soccer and Little League baseball programs; and others who are concerned about central Oregon's youth and adults having adequate recreational facilities. What these folks asked me to do was very straightforward: if the Forest service is going to sell, exchange, or otherwise develop the former Bend Pine Nursery, the community wanted the opportunity to acquire the property for the development of a sports complex, playing fields and other facilities. My bill simply creates an opportunity for the Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District to work with the people of Bend on whether or not to purchase this property. It does not require purchase by the community, it simply gives the community a right of first refusal to buy the property at fair market value. At the same time, this legislation allows the Deschutes National Forest to address its need for a new administrative site. Currently, the Deschutes pays approximately $725,000 per year in annual lease and utility costs. This is \3/4\ of a million dollars that is not being spent on the ground, improving the quality of Deschutes National Forest facilities, lands and resources. It is a credit to the leadership of the Deschutes National Forest that they seek a way out from this unnecessary, unproductive and recurring expense. My bill will enable the Deschutes to use the money raised from the sale of the nursery and other surplus properties in Oregon toward the acquisition--and ownership--of a new administrative site. The cost of a new building is estimated to be about $7 million; as my colleagues can see, the forest is paying almost a million dollars in rent each year. In the words of an ad from today's ``Bend Bulletin'', and I quote: ``Tired of throwing away thousands on rent? Think you can't buy? think again. If you're stuck in the renter rut, try it our way.'' I look forward to a hearing next year on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management, of which I am ranking member. I welcome my colleague, Mr. Smith, as an original cosponsor of this innovative bill I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I would like to ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes after the Senator from Missouri has spoken.

Mr. WYDEN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, and colleagues, this is the time of the legislative session when too many important bills and nominations are killed in secret through a process known as the secret hold. This session of the Senate was supposed to be different as a result of an agreement between the majority and the minority leaders. I am going to read from that agreement. On February 25, Senator Lott and Senator Daschle wrote all Senators: All Members wishing to place a hold on any legislation or executive calendar business shall notify the sponsor of the legislation and the committee of jurisdiction of their concern. Further written notification should be provided to respective leaders stating their intentions regarding their bill or nomination. Holds placed on items by a member of a personal or committee staff will not be honored unless accompanied by a written notification from the objecting Senator by the end of the following business day. Suffice it to say, colleagues, I suspect there are a few sponsors of legislation here in the Senate who have not been notified that there is a hold on their legislation. I hope as we move towards the last hours of this session all Senators, Democrats and Republicans, will honor the policy set out by Senators Lott and Daschle. The secret holds are a breach of all that the Senate is supposed to stand for in terms of openness and public accountability. I hope Senators will comply with that new policy set out by Senators Lott and Daschle. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator from Minnesota yield?

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President. The Senator from West Virginia has been a great ally of the Nation's older people, and I very much appreciate his thoughtfulness. I believe my time is almost up. I intend to keep coming to the floor of the Senate to read from these bills that we are getting from the Nation's senior citizens. We have 54 Members of the Senate already on record as having voted for a specific plan to fund a prescription drug benefit for older people. We can do this in a bipartisan way. We have the chairman of the Aging Committee, Senator Grassley, who has led our efforts on the committee on so many issues. I am going to keep coming back to the floor and read from these bills. Again and again, we are hearing from seniors who cannot afford important drugs such as their diabetes medicines. I will wrap up by saying, when I am asked the question whether our Nation can afford prescription drug coverage, my response is we cannot afford not to cover prescriptions. A lot of these drugs help seniors stay healthy, keep their blood pressure down, or help to reduce cholesterol. I have cited previously an anticoagulant drug. It costs senior citizens about $1,000 a year. With those kinds of medicines, we can help prevent strokes that involve expenses of more than $100,000. I am going to keep coming back to this floor to focus on the needs of seniors. We ought to do this in a bipartisan way. That is what is behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation. A lot of our colleagues have other ideas for addressing this issue. As this poster says, I hope seniors will continue to send copies of their prescription drug bills to us in the Senate, Washington, DC. I will keep coming to this floor until we can get the bipartisan action we need that provides real relief for the Nation's older people. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been coming to the floor for a number of days now in an effort to try to get a focus back on this prescription drug issue which seems to involve a lot of finger pointing and a lot of partisan bickering. As part of that effort, I have been urging seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills. Just as this poster says, the senior can send in a copy of the prescription drug bill, and write to each of us in the Senate here in Washington, DC. I have been actually coming to the floor and reading some of these bills for a number of weeks. Just in the last couple of days, I heard from a woman in Portland--she is 84; she has diabetes and a heart condition. She has only Social Security to support herself. She is spending over a third of that Social Security check every month on prescription drugs. She is now at a point where it is hard to pay the taxes on her home. I heard from another gentleman recently. He has a monthly Social Security check of $633. The cost of his drugs is $644 a month. He is spending more for his prescription drugs each month than he is actually getting in income. So every month this senior is having to choose between food and fuel and fuel and health care. So as a result of this effort to get from seniors copies of their prescription drug bills, we are hearing about the kind of suffering that seniors are enduring around this country. Senator Olympia Snowe and I have a bipartisan prescription drug bill. It would cover all senior citizens on an ability-to-pay basis. More than 50 Senators of both political parties are now on record as supporting a funding plan for this legislation. I know other Senators have approaches they would like to try. What is important is that we get a bipartisan focus on this issue. Every public opinion poll shows seniors and families across this country are having difficulty making ends meet when it comes to the high cost of essential health care services. Our approach is marketplace oriented. There are not price controls. It is not one size fits all. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is called SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It is designed to deal with the double whammy our seniors are facing on their prescriptions. First, Medicare does not cover the drugs they need and, second, when a senior citizen walks into a drug store, in effect that senior is subsidizing the big buyers, the health maintenance organizations, and other health plans that are able to get discounts. So seniors have this double whammy now in front of them when it comes to their prescriptions. I hope more will, as these posters indicate, send us copies of their prescription drug bills. I think on the basis of these bills that we are getting from seniors across the country-- each of us in the Senate here in Washington, DC--we can bring about bipartisan support to actually respond to the needs of the seniors.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business. If they have a consent agreement worked out, then I will hold off.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I gather the consent agreement is not worked out. I did ask consent for the right to speak up to 10 minutes. I gather they can work things out during that period of time.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I noticed Senator Grassley, who worked very hard on this bill, is trying to get a consent agreement. I will hold off if he is ready to go forward. Otherwise, I will proceed because I have the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the newspapers of the Nation this weekend were filled with stories about the politics of prescription drug coverage for the Nation's elderly. One poll after another said that the question of covering prescription drugs for seniors was one of the top three concerns of millions of Americans--not just seniors, but people of all ages. And then, in addition to all the polls and surveys that were published this weekend, some of our most distinguished political journalists were out across the country interviewing people in America asking them what they thought about Congress' handling of the prescription drug issue. And one interview after another essentially has seniors and families responding that they could not figure out why the Congress in Washington, DC, could not tackle this issue in a bipartisan way. I remember one of the interviewees in particular, in effect, saying, ``What are they so busy fussing about in Washington, DC, that they can't find the time to deal with an issue so important to millions of older people?'' I think that person who got interviewed pretty much summed it up. I have been coming up to the floor of the Senate over the last 2 or 3 weeks in an effort to try to bring folks' attention, both in the Senate and in our country, that there is bipartisan legislation to cover the question of prescription drugs for older people, and to talk about why it is so important. As part of that effort, as you can see in the poster next to me, I have been urging that seniors send in copies of their prescription drug bills--actually send in copies of their prescription drug bills to those of us in the Senate in Washington, DC. I have been getting a great many of these bills. I have been coming to the floor on a number of occasions and actually reading from these bills because I think it helps to drive home what we saw in the newspapers all across the country this weekend, and that is that we have to come up with a bipartisan plan to meet these needs of vulnerable elderly people. So tonight I am going to read from some of the letters that I am receiving from older people at home in Oregon. Four letters in particular struck me as particularly compelling in recent days. I have heard from folks in North Bend, Redmond, Roseburg, and Milwaukie in the metropolitan area of our State. All of them essentially make the same kind of case, and that is that so many seniors are walking on an economic tightrope. They are balancing food costs against the fuel costs and the fuel costs against their medical bills. With so many being unable to afford their prescriptions, they are writing and saying they can't afford to wait for another election, the 2000 election, to resolve this issue. They have been reading these articles with Members of Congress saying that it is too complicated to tackle now. It is too difficult to get a consensus. I just don't think that is the case. There is a bipartisan bill now before the U.S. Senate. It is one that was drafted by the distinguished senior Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, and myself. We got 54 votes for it on the floor of the Senate. A majority of Members of the Senate voted in a specific way to fund the prescription drug benefit for the Nation's older people. So it is just not right to say that there is no consensus, there is no way to bring Senators of both political parties together on this issue. It is just factually wrong. Fifty-four Members of the Senate have said that they would vote for a specific approach to funding a drug benefit for the Nation's older people, and it was a bipartisan vote. It wasn't done in the dead of night. It was part of the budget debate. A majority in the Senate is now on record. It is a plan that I think unleashes the forces of the marketplace. It is built on the model from which Members of Congress get their health care, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. It is called the SPICE Program, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It gives seniors the kind of bargaining power that some of these big purchasers such as the health maintenance organizations have. Right now, seniors with prescriptions get hit by sort of a double whammy. First, Medicare doesn't cover prescriptions. It hasn't since the program began in 1965. Second, when a senior citizen walks into a drugstore, walks into their neighborhood pharmacy, in effect that senior has to pay a premium for their prescription drugs because the big buyers actually get discounts. You have these health care plans. You have health maintenance organizations. You have the big buyers going out and negotiating discounts. Then senior citizens walk into the pharmacy in their community in effect having to pay a premium and in effect subsidizing the big buyers in town who get these discounts. I am often asked whether our country can afford to cover prescription drugs for the Nation's older people. My response is that America can't afford not to cover these prescription drugs because so many of these drugs at this time are essentially ones that help keep older people well. They help keep them healthy--lower blood pressure, deal with cholesterol problems--and keep seniors from getting sick and landing in the hospital where they need very expensive services from what is called the Part A program of Medicare, the hospital institutional part. I have cited on several occasions on the floor of the Senate anticoagulant drugs because I think they best illustrate how serious the problem is and why it needs a bipartisan solution along the lines of the Snowe-Wyden bill. It makes some sense. These anticoagulant drugs might cost in the vicinity of $1,000 a year to cover the needs of an older person. But if with anticoagulant medicine we can prevent this debilitating injury, that could save in the vicinity of $100,000. That would be expenses incurred when an older person suffers a stroke. Think of that: $1,000 for an anticoagulant medicine, and as a result of a senior being able to afford that, very often that person can stay healthy and keep from being struck by debilitating stroke and incurring $100,000 in expenses that would come about as a result of that illness. I hope seniors will continue to write to me and to other Members of the Senate, as this poster says. We hope they will send us copies of their prescription drug bills and actually send copies of how they are affected to each of us here in the Senate in Washington, DC. I want to take just a minute or two now to read from some of the letters I have received in the last few days. One of the first is a letter I received from an older couple in North Bend. The spouse is 73. Her husband is 77. They report that they have about $18,000 a year in Social Security income and spend about $2,000 of it on their prescription drugs. They have a Blue Cross plan. It doesn't cover any of their prescriptions--none of them. I think this is really sort of typical of what I have been hearing from senior citizens across our State. Here is a copy of what these bills look like for folks who are thinking about sending them to us. This one comes from North Bend, OR. It comes from the Safeway pharmacy there in North Bend. An older couple points out in a letter to me that they simply are not going to be able to afford what they are told is going to be the next increase. They are told that next month their bills are going to go up again on top of what I have cited they are having to pay for over-the-counter medications as well. Compared to some of their friends, they are not what they call ``pill takers.'' With an income of $18,000 a year, think of having to spend about $2,000 of it on prescription drugs, and that doesn't even count for what they spend on over-the-counter medications. Their bills are going up again next month. These are the kinds of people to whom I think the Senate ought to be listening. Another letter I received in the last few days comes from an older couple in Redmond. They sent me this bill for the month of October. Just for the month of October, colleagues who maybe listening in--$282 a month just for the month of October from an older couple in Redmond. They went to the Rite-Aid Pharmacy in a mall in Redmond. They are faced now with the prospect of having to spend $282 a month all year round on their prescriptions, and, suffice it to say, they too are asking why it is that the Congress, and the Senate specifically, isn't being responsive. Here is a third bill I received in the last few days. This is from an older woman who is spending close to $300 a month on her prescription drugs at the Wal-Mart in Roseburg. This is again the kind of real-life case to which I think the Senate ought to be paying attention. They are just sending us now copies of their bills. These are not drugs that are uncommon. Glucophage, for example, for a lot of seniors is an essential medicine because it helps them with their diabetes. When senior citizens can't afford to pay for a prescription for glucophage, they are going to suffer some very serious health problems as a result. I cited examples at the end of last week. There are seniors at home in Oregon who have prescriptions their doctor wrote out for drugs such as that, and they simply could not afford to have them filled. They were hanging on to the prescription hoping that sometime down the road they would get the funds to be able to afford their prescriptions. That is the kind of case we are hearing about from the Nation's older people. I hope folks who are listening in tonight will see, as this poster says, that we hope to hear from more of them. We would like for them, as this poster says, to send copies of their prescription drug bills directly to us in the Senate in Washington, DC. I intend to keep coming to the floor of this body and going through some of these cases in the hopes that this can pique the conscience of the Senate for bipartisan action. Finally, tonight I have one other bill that struck me as so poignant and really summing it up. It comes from an older man who sends his wife's mother's bill because she is 91 and she is spending about $400 per month on prescription medicines. The letter says this is outrageous for a 91-year-old person, a person who is on a fixed income, to have to pay. She is 91 years old. The list goes on for pages. I am going to wrap up tonight by saying it would be one thing if you couldn't bring Senators together around an important issue and simply not find any consensus whatsoever. That is not the case with respect to the Snowe-Wyden legislation. The senior Senator from Maine and I have teamed up on a bill that is modeled after the kind of health care Members of the United States Senate receive. Mr. President, 54 Members of the Senate, as part of the budget debate, said they would vote for a way to pay for the plan. We are seeing these polls and interviews along the lines of what I cited. Newspapers were filled this weekend with folks saying, why can't the Senate act? That is the question: Why can't the Senate act when there is a bipartisan bill? The SPICE legislation, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act, is legislation I believe can move forward because it is bipartisan. Certainly, our colleagues have other ideas about how to proceed. Senator Snowe and I are anxious to hear from them with respect to their approach. What is important is that the Senate stop ducking this issue. The Senate ought to say we are now going to recognize how serious these concerns of the Nation's older people are and not just put them off and say it is too complicated to deal with now and we will talk about it in 2001, but with a year to go until election, we ought to roll up our sleeves and come up with a bipartisan plan to address these needs. Until that time, I hope seniors will continue to send copies of their prescription drug bills to each Senator. I am particularly anxious to have them. Send them to our offices in Washington, DC. I will keep coming to the floor of this body, reading from letters from folks, including this 91-year-old who cannot afford next month's increase in prescription drugs, folks who cannot pay for their diabetes medicine and are likely to get much sicker as a result. I intend to keep coming to the floor of this body, reading from those letters, and doing everything I can to try to bring the Senate together around bipartisan legislation to meet the needs of our elderly. The approach behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation does not involve price controls. We have a lot of Senators legitimately concerned about that. It is not a one-size-fits-all Federal regime. It is a model based on something we all know well. That is the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. In fact, the SPICE Program that Senator Snowe and I have drafted is a senior citizens version of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. We are convinced it can work for the Nation's older people. I hope we will not pass up this opportunity to address these heartfelt concerns that seniors are passing on. I hope we will not say this issue is too complicated for the Senate to act. We may be leaving in a few days, but there will be an opportunity in the days ahead to bring Senators of both political parties together and fashion legislation that is responsive to the country's older people. I am convinced older people cannot afford to wait another year, wait another year for politicking and debates to go forward. Certainly, based on the kinds of bills, as the bill I read from, including the 91-year-old senior spending $400 a month, she cannot afford to wait, at 91, for another year of electioneering. I believe when there is a bipartisan bill before the Senate, she shouldn't have to wait. I will continue to read from these letters. I hope folks will send copies of their prescription drug bills. We need to act on this matter. We saw again this weekend how important it is to the American people. I will be coming back to this floor again and again and again until we get bipartisan action on this urgent matter for millions of the Nation's older people. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been coming to the floor now on a number of occasions, as we move toward the end of our work for this year, in an effort to try to build bipartisan support for ensuring that senior citizens can get prescription drugs under their Medicare. There is one bipartisan bill now before the Senate. It is the legislation that Senator Snowe and I have introduced together. Fifty- four Members of the Senate have voted for this bill. It seems so sad that the Senate cannot come together on an issue such as this and provide some real relief for the Nation's older people. So as part of this effort to get bipartisan support for legislation to cover seniors for their prescription drug bills, I have come to the floor and urged seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills, to send in copies of their bills to all of us here in the Senate in Washington, DC. I hope that in doing that, it will help generate some awareness about how serious a problem this really is for the Nation's older people. As I have done on previous occasions, I come to the floor to discuss some of these letters. This afternoon, I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about a handful of the letters I have received from senior citizens in my hometown of Portland. We have read from letters from seniors across the State of Oregon in the past. Today, I thought I would look to my hometown and describe a little bit about what the seniors are faced with in terms of trying to pay these prescription bills. One elderly widow wrote me in the last couple of days from Portland to describe her situation as one where she has a monthly income of $806. She spends about $150 of that monthly income on her prescriptions. She indicates she is having problems paying for these very large prescription drug bills. When asked by our staff what she does in a situation such as this, she just said: I do without and pray. That was her response to the question of making sure she could get help with her prescriptions. She goes on to say, when we asked her about choosing between food and fuel and health care--we have literally millions of our Nation's seniors today walking on an economic tightrope, balancing these costs, medical bills against their fuel bills. When we asked her how she handled the situation with respect to her medicine, she said: I just wait. I always pay the utilities first. Now, this isn't some kind of statistic or abstract kind of matter that the think tanks are debating here in the beltway. This is a senior citizen back home in Portland, my hometown. She has a monthly income of $806. She spends $150 of it on her prescription medicines. When she can't afford her prescriptions, she writes me: I just do without and pray. How is it that a country as rich and strong and powerful as ours can't provide some relief to an elderly widow with an income of $806 a month, spending more than $150 of it on her prescriptions and literally having to pray she will get some help with her medical bills? How is it that our country, so strong and so good, can't come up with a plan to help an elderly widow such as this? Senator Snowe and I are part of a bipartisan team trying to address it. The Snowe-Wyden legislation has garnered 54 votes on the floor of the Senate in terms of its funding plan. Already a majority of the Senate is on record as saying this is an appropriate way to try to fund a prescription drug benefit for older people. I am concerned--this is right at the heart of the philosophy behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation--that if we don't act, and act in a bipartisan way, in this session of the Congress before we wrap up our business next year, it will be years before older people get some help with their prescription drugs. I am very often asked at town hall meetings and other gatherings whether our Nation can afford to cover prescription drugs. My view is, we cannot afford not to cover these prescription drugs. Not only are we hearing about the suffering in these letters I keep bringing to the floor of the Senate, but we are seeing in so many instances that if older people could get just a little bit of help with their prescription drug costs, that would help our country save much more expensive medical bills down the road. I have repeatedly cited on this floor the anticoagulant drugs. That seems to me a particularly good example. The evidence shows that if older people can get help with some of these anticoagulant medicines-- the cost might be $1,000 a year for help with anticoagulant medicines-- they could save the cost they might incur if they suffer a stroke as a result of not getting their medicines. Those costs can be upwards of $100,000 a year. That is, in effect, the kind of challenge with which we are faced. Either we address this issue on a bipartisan basis--that is what the Snowe-Wyden legislation is all about--or we continue to have our senior citizens suffering, whether it is in Alabama, Oregon, or any other State. This is an area where we can work in a bipartisan way. In the Snowe-Wyden legislation, we reject price controls. This isn't a run from Washington, one-size-fits-all Federal approach. We try to use marketplace forces, the ingenuity of the marketplace to give senior citizens some clout. It is a model we all know something about. Federal employees in Alabama and Oregon use the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. It is marketplace oriented. It gives folks choices and options and alternatives. That is the model behind the Snowe-Wyden legislation. Our bill is called SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. With a majority of the Senate already having voted for a funding plan for the program, we think that is the way to proceed. As seniors hear us on the floor of the Senate talking about this issue and urging that folks send us copies of their prescription drug bills to the Senate in Washington, DC, they may have other ideas than the Snowe-Wyden legislation. The important thing is, there is no reason this Senate cannot come together in a bipartisan fashion and act in a way to provide real and meaningful relief to the Nation's older people. I will cite another couple of examples of older people who have been writing us in recent days. An elderly gentleman from Portland, again, describes taking five drugs, a lot of them very familiar--Minocin, nitroglycerin for blood pressure, for heart ailments connected with diabetes. This gentleman has a monthly income of about $900. He is spending about $170 from his monthly income on prescriptions. We talked to him about what it means for him to be in this kind of financial crunch where, out of a monthly income of $900, $170 of it goes for prescriptions. He reports that if he could have a little bit of help with his prescriptions, he would have money for other things he describes as clothing. So we are not talking about seniors getting help with their prescriptions and then suddenly using it for some sort of luxury or something that might be considered nonessential. These seniors are talking about not having enough money to pay for essentials. When they can't get help for their prescription drugs, such as this elderly gentleman in Portland, this gentleman said, in effect, he can't afford his clothing. He cannot afford clothing. Of course, that, to some extent, is a health-related kind of matter because older people are susceptible to illness. This is getting to be the colder part of the year. These are folks who, if they can't get adequate clothing, may pick up illnesses as a result of not being able to afford warm clothes. What we are talking about may not be of great importance to some of these think tanks in Washington. I have seen they are putting out all kinds of reports that this is not all that important to seniors. I talk to senior citizens at home in Oregon. The seniors we are talking to know these are real problems. What they want to see is the Senate deal with them in a bipartisan kind of fashion. They want to see us get beyond some of the bickering and the finger pointing. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is built on that principle. We don't want to see the U.S. Senate duck this issue, have it go out on the campaign trail where Democrats will attack the Republicans and Republicans will attack back. That is really easy. It is easy to take issues like this, using the campaign fodder for advertisements. What is tough is crafting bipartisan legislation. So I am very hopeful that seniors, as this poster says, will send in copies of their prescription drug bills to us here in the Senate in Washington, DC. Instead of having to come to the floor of the Senate day after day, as I have, I can come to the floor of the Senate and talk about being proud of working with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to address this issue. Before I wrap this up for this afternoon, I wanted to mention one other account that came to Tualatin just outside Portland at home in Oregon. This was an elderly couple, they spend about $300 a month on their prescription drugs. They are taking 11 prescriptions. They report that they are retired but are trying to work to pay for prescriptions. The husband is over 65 and he is trying to work now in order to pay their prescription drug bills of $300 a month. This is an elderly couple in Tualatin, OR. None of it is covered by health insurance. They report to us that they are cutting down on other essentials that are important to them, but they are going to keep working. The husband is going to keep working simply to pay the couple's prescription drug bills. Think about that for a moment, the three cases I have read from today: An elderly widow who can't pay her prescription drug bills without great hardship with an income of $806 a month, with $150 for prescriptions. She says, ``I just do without and pray.'' Next is an elderly gentlemen from Portland, with a monthly income of $900 a month, and he is spending about $170 of it on prescription drugs. He says he hopes to be able to get some coverage so he would be able to afford some clothing --an essential, especially as we move into the cold weather season. And then, finally, is the couple I just mentioned with $300 a month in prescription drug bills, with the husband not in good health but continuing to work solely to pay for their prescriptions. I think it is so sad that when we have had a majority in the Senate go on record as voting for a plan to fund this important benefit for the elderly, when I know there are Senators of good will on both sides of the aisle who would like to work on a marketplace solution to covering prescription drugs for seniors, the Senate can't come together and deal with it. The fact is, our senior citizens are getting creamed with respect to their prescription drug bills, and it happens two ways. First, Medicare never covered prescriptions when the program began in 1965. I guess the architects didn't think it would be all that important. As I have said on the floor of the Senate, it is more important today than it used to be because many of these drugs help to lower bills because they are preventive in nature. In addition to Medicare not covering prescriptions, what is happening today is if you are a senior citizen in Alabama, or in Oregon, and you walk into a drugstore in a small town in Oregon or in the State of the Presiding Officer, that senior citizen who walks into the drugstore, in effect, subsidizes the big buyers of medicine. If you are a health maintenance organization in Oregon, or in any other State, you can go out and negotiate a discount. You can go out and negotiate a good price on your medicine. You have clout in the marketplace. But if you are a senior citizen who just walks into a drugstore, you don't have any bargaining power, you don't have any clout. So, in effect, that senior citizen who walks into a pharmacy is subsidizing the big buyers in the community, the health maintenance organizations that can negotiate a discount. Those seniors are getting creamed twice. Medicare doesn't cover it, and then they have to subsidize the big buyers. So I intend to keep coming to the floor of the Senate, continuing to bring to light these various kinds of real-life examples from home in Oregon. I hope seniors, as this poster indicates, will send us copies of their prescription drug bills. I want to hear from them. I want folks who are listening to the work of the Senate and are following this to send me and my colleagues copies of your prescription drug bills. Send it to us, each of us here, as the poster says, in Washington, DC. I want you to do it for just one reason: I think this is the kind of problem that we are sent here to deal with. This is not some trifling, inconsequential matter. This is a question of whether we are going to respond to the more than 20 percent of the Nation's senior citizens who are walking on an economic tightrope every year, spending more than $1,000 a year out-of-pocket on prescriptions, balancing food costs against fuel costs, and fuel costs against their medical costs. As I have said again and again, they are giving up medicines that are essential to their health. I mentioned yesterday older people with diabetes who can't afford the Glucophage, an essential diabetes drug. This is not something that is inconsequential; this is something that, for older people, can literally mean the difference between decent health or incurring a very, very serious illness and, often, even death. Let us not be indifferent to the plight of those older people. They are asking the Senate for action. The bipartisan Snowe-Wyden legislation is one approach that I happen to favor. But I am sure our colleagues have other ideas. What is unacceptable to me, though, is to just say that this Senate won't take it up, we will save it for the campaign trail of 2000, we will tackle it another day. We ought to tackle it now. This has been an issue and a concern of the Nation's older people since back in the days when I was director of the Gray Panthers at home in Oregon. But it is getting to be an even bigger concern because more and more older people can't afford their medicine, and with more seniors interested in wellness and trying to stay healthy, this is the time for the United States Senate to act. So I intend to keep coming back again and again to the floor of the Senate, and I hope seniors will send in copies of their prescription drug bills. I am proud there is a bipartisan bill now before the Senate to deal with this issue, the Snowe-Wyden legislation. I hope that seniors will be in contact with us, give us their ideas on whether they think our bill is the way to go, or if they prefer another route. What is unacceptable to me is for the Senate to duck this issue. We have an opportunity to work in a bipartisan fashion on it. I intend to keep coming back to the floor of the Senate again and again until we get that action. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I ask unanimous consent at this point to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been coming to the floor over the last few days in an effort to win support for bipartisan legislation to secure prescription drug coverage for the Nation's older people. As part of that effort, I have been urging seniors, as this poster says, to send in copies of their prescription drug bills to each of us in the Senate in Washington, DC. In addition to getting copies from seniors of their prescription drug bills, I am now hearing from seniors who are sending me copies of prescriptions they cannot afford to get filled. This is a prescription that was written for an older gentleman at home in Beaverton, OR. He is using 21 prescriptions at this point. He has already spent almost $1,700 this year on his prescriptions. Here we have three he cannot afford to get filled: Glucophage is a drug that one takes to deal with diabetes; Tagamet; Prilosec--three very common prescriptions older people in our country need and use. This is an example of what he sent me, prescriptions his doctor wrote out, and he can no longer afford to actually get them filled. This is the kind of account I am hearing from seniors across the country. We have asked them to send in copies of their prescription drug bills. I have a whole sheaf of those, all kinds of bills we are receiving in that area. But now we are actually hearing from seniors and getting copies of their prescriptions their physicians are writing for them that they cannot even take to a drugstore and get filled. In the last 24 hours, we in the Senate have been watching the news reports about the dueling press conferences involving prescriptions. There has been an awful lot of finger pointing one way or another. Frankly, each one of them has some reasonable points to make. What is so frustrating is that instead of these dueling press conferences and going back and forth, having all this finger pointing, the Senate ought to be working on bipartisan legislation. There is one bipartisan bill now before the Senate. It is the Snowe- Wyden legislation. The Senator from Maine and I have teamed up over the last few months to put together a bipartisan bill to get prescription drugs covered for older people on Medicare. We have 54 Members of the Senate already on record as voting for a specific plan to fund this program. A majority of the Senate is now on record for a bipartisan proposal to pay for prescriptions. Here we are, with the session only having a few more days to go, Senators--I am sure I am not the only one--getting copies from seniors of prescriptions that they cannot actually afford to have filled. We have asked them in recent days to send us copies of their prescription drug bills. They have been doing that. Now they are sending us copies of prescriptions they cannot afford to take to their neighborhood pharmacy and get covered. It is so sad to see these dueling press conferences, and then we don't have a response, to have seniors telling us the sad and often tragic stories about how they can't afford to take their medicine. Their doctor tells them to take three pills. They don't do that. They start taking two. They start taking one. Eventually they get much sicker. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is bipartisan. It uses marketplace forces. We don't have a Federal price control regime. We don't have a one-size-fits-all health care policy. We have the kind of approach that works for Members of Congress and their families. Our bill, called SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act, is a senior citizens version of the kind of health plan that Members of Congress have. We incorporated recommendations from consumer groups. Families USA, for example, has made some excellent recommendations on consumer protections that older people need. We have also listened to the insurance sector and the pharmaceutical sector, making sure there would be adequate incentives for research and the initiatives that are underway to help us find a cure for Alzheimer's and all of the illnesses that are so tragic, for which every Member of the Senate wants to see a cure. I will keep coming to the floor. I want to cite a couple more examples before we wrap up. I know other colleagues want to speak. I heard recently from a senior citizen in Forest Grove that in recent months she spent almost $1,500 on her prescription drugs. Another older person from the Portland metropolitan area reported that in a few months, she spent over $600 for her medications. She is now taking more than seven medications on an ongoing basis. Very often the families have to go out and try to find free samples to compensate for some of the drugs the older people can't afford. Families have to chip in when it is hard for them to afford medicine. They are all asking, is the Senate going to just bicker about this issue or is the Senate going to come together in a bipartisan way and actually do something about these problems? We have more than 20 percent of the Nation's older people spending over $1,000 a year out of pocket on their medicine. I am very often asked: Can this Nation afford to cover prescription drugs? My response is, we cannot afford not to cover these prescriptions. As I have cited several times during these presentations, a lot of these drugs help us to hold down costs. They help us to deal with blood pressure and cholesterol. The anticoagulant drugs are absolutely key to preventing strokes. I cited an example of one important anticoagulant drug where for $1,000 a year, in terms of the cost to the senior, they are able to save $100,000 in expenses that they would incur if they suffered a debilitating stroke when they couldn't get these medicines. It is absolutely essential that we secure this coverage for the Nation's older people. It seems to me now a question of political will. Can we set aside some of the partisanship on this health care issue, some of the bickering that has gone on back and forth? I believe the Snowe-Wyden legislation--a majority of the Senate has already voted for in terms of its funding plan--is the way to go. But I know colleagues have other ideas. What we ought to do is resolve to deal with this issue in a bipartisan way. I hope seniors will continue to send us copies of their prescription drug bills, as the poster says, to their Senator in Washington, DC. I hope in the days ahead we won't see a whole lot more of these tragedies such as the one I have cited today. It is one thing for a senior to send in their bills and say, I am having difficulty paying for this; I hope you will cover it. But it is quite another for a senior citizen to send me, as this older person did from Beaverton, a copy of his prescriptions saying--it says it right down in the margin-- ``can't afford to get filled.'' Prescriptions his doctor ordered, in effect the prescriptions go unfilled. These are important medicines. If you don't take Glucophage and you have diabetes, you can have some very serious health problems. I am hopeful the Senate will look to get beyond the dueling press conferences, look beyond some of the issues that have surrounded this discussion in a partisan way and say: We are going to come together and go to bat for seniors and their families. It is time to do it. I intend to keep coming back to the floor until we secure this coverage. It was important for seniors back in the days when I was director of the Gray Panthers. It is even more important now because these drugs can help us to save bigger health care bills down the road. I will be back on the floor continually calling for a bipartisan approach to this issue, one that uses marketplace forces to deal with the challenge of health care costs. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have always been supportive of modernizing the outdated laws and regulations governing the financial services industry. It doesn't make sense to me to slap a regulatory straight-jacket on American financial companies and drive up costs for consumers while companies around the globe are able to compete unhindered by unnecessary barriers. It seems to me that you can't compete in a 21st century global financial market using a playbook that was written during the Great Depression. But I have also believed that financial services modernization shouldn't come at the expense of consumer and community interests. In fact, back in May, I voted against the Senate version of this bill, as did 43 of my colleagues here in the Senate, because it would have devastated lending in rural and low income communities, and because it didn't adequately address the issue of consumer financial privacy. Fortunately, this conference report is leaps and bounds better than the bill that passed along party lines here in the Senate several months ago. It won't allow financial institutions to participate in the new and improved financial market unless they maintain a good community lending record. And, while far from perfect, it also begins to address the issue of consumer financial privacy, which was virtually non- existent in the previous bill. This bill requires financial institutions to disclose their privacy and information sharing policies to their customers. And in some instances--but not enough--it allows consumers to block these companies from sharing their private customer information with other companies. This is an improvement over the original Senate bill, and even an improvement over current law. This is a good start on financial privacy, but it doesn't close the deal. The privacy provisions in the conference report do not provide the level of protection that the American people deserve. There is a long way to go with respect to protecting the financial privacy of all Americans. While I am disappointed that the privacy protections in the bill are not as strong as I would like, I share the beliefs of several of my distinguished colleagues, such as Senator Sarbanes and Senator Leahy, that these protections can be and must be further strengthened by legislation next year, and I intend to work closely with my colleagues to make sure this happens. On balance, the conference report should be adopted, and I hope that the same forces that worked so hard to move legislative mountains and align political stars to make this legislation possible will work equally as hard with me and other Senators next year to give Americans the privacy protection they demand and deserve.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the issue of prescription drugs for the Nation's senior citizens is back in the headlines this morning with yet another study having been published that millions of senior citizens in America cannot afford their prescriptions. This is the 12th time I have come to the floor in recent days to talk about this issue because I think it is so critical that the Senate act in a bipartisan way to deal with what are clearly the great out-of- pocket costs for the Nation's older people. Specifically, as this poster next to me says, I have been urging senior citizens to send in copies of their prescription drug bills to each of us in the Senate in Washington, DC. The reason I hope we will hear from seniors around the country is there is one bipartisan bill, one that is before the Senate now, to deal with this question of prescription needs for seniors. It is the bill on which Senator Olympia Snowe and I have teamed up in recent months, and 54 Members of this body, the majority, have already voted for the funding plan that is laid out in the Snowe-Wyden legislation. So we have 54 Members of the Senate on record as supporting a specific plan to cover prescription drugs for the Nation's older people. The model in the Snowe-Wyden legislation is something that every Member of the Senate is familiar with because it is the model we have for health care for ourselves and our families. The Snowe-Wyden legislation is called SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It would ensure that seniors would get their medicine at an affordable rate because our bill would allow them the bargaining power that big organizations, big purchasers such as the health maintenance organizations would have. The tragedy today with respect to our Nation's seniors and prescriptions is they get shellacked twice; first, because Medicare does not cover prescriptions. When the program began in 1965, it did not cover prescriptions initially. Second, because the big buyers, the health maintenance organizations and the other big purchasers, are able to use their clout in the marketplace, those folks can get a discount and a senior citizen in rural Oregon or rural New Mexico or another part of this country in effect has to subsidize with their dollars the break the large organizations are getting. Frankly, there are other ideas for dealing with this issue. Colleagues on both sides of the aisle have them. What I am trying to do to support the Snowe-Wyden bipartisan legislation is to come to the floor and, as this poster says, ask our seniors to send copies of their prescription drug bills directly to us in the Senate in Washington. I am going to, as I have done on 11 previous occasions recently, actually read from some of these bills so we can make the case for how urgent this need is. For example, I recently received a letter from a woman in Portland who described to me what she and her husband are facing with respect to their prescription drug costs. This couple in Portland has a combined income of about $1,500 a month. She spends, from that $1,500-a-month income, $230 on prescription drugs and he spends about $180 a month. So the two of them, an elderly couple in Portland, are spending more than $400 a month on prescription drugs. They are spending upwards of $4,000 a year on their prescription medicine and, as they reported to me, they have no insurance to cover these costs. This morning in Washington we saw, again, more press conferences on this issue. I guess we can go day after day having dueling press conferences with respect to this issue of prescription drugs. We can have a lot of finger pointing, we can have a lot of bickering, a lot of quarreling about how serious the problem is and what to do about it, but there is one bipartisan bill that uses marketplace forces to try to deal with this issue. The Snowe-Wyden legislation steers clear of price controls. We do not have a Federal regime for handling this benefit. It is not one-size-fits-all Federal policy. It uses marketplace forces to make sure seniors have choices and options and alternatives for their prescription medicines. It is based on a model that all of us are pretty familiar with because we utilize the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. I want to go through a couple more of these cases. I know the distinguished Senator from Louisiana is here to speak on an important matter, as are other colleagues. But I do, as part of this effort, want to highlight with these specific cases some of what we are seeing all across this country as seniors walk this economic tightrope, balancing their food costs against their fuel costs, and their fuel costs against their medical bills and find themselves, again and again, not in a position to pay for their prescriptions. I received another letter in the last few days from a senior citizen in Oregon. She is on seven prescriptions. She has heart disease; she has high blood pressure and diabetes. She and her husband exist on Social Security and a tiny disability check. They get a couple of thousand dollars a month maximum in their income. Every month, they spend at least $300 of it on prescription drugs. That is just the wife in the household. Her husband has to spend additionally on prescription drugs. This particular elderly person wrote and said if it were not for the free samples that she was getting from her physician, she simply could not meet her expenses. Another letter I received described a senior taking five prescription drugs. She has high blood pressure and high thyroid. She has an income of a little under $1,000 a month. She spends about $100 a month on prescription drugs. And she wrote me: I am lucky that my kids will give me a hand when I have difficulty in affording my prescriptions. As part of this effort to have the Senate deal with this urgent need for older people in a bipartisan way, I would like to see the Senate consider the one bipartisan bill before us now, the Snowe-Wyden legislation. But I am sure colleagues have other ideas, and I think if we will listen to the senior citizens of this country who are sending me and our colleagues copies of these bills--as the poster says, ``Send in copies of prescription drug bills directly to us here in the Senate''--we can help the Senate deal with this issue on a bipartisan basis. I am going to wrap up this afternoon with a question I hope a lot of colleagues are asking with respect to prescription drug coverage: Can our Nation afford to cover prescription drug costs of older people? My answer to that is: I believe we cannot afford not to ensure that our seniors get this coverage. I want to cite an example before I wrap up. Last week, I talked about the evidence we are seeing with the new anticoagulant drugs. These are important drugs that can help seniors prevent strokes and debilitating illnesses. As a result of seniors taking these medicines, which cost about $1,000 a year, there is documented medical evidence now that these drugs can help prevent strokes, which cost upwards of $100,000 a year. So think about the investment, the wise investment--not just from a health standpoint, not just from the standpoint of trying to make sure our seniors get a fair shake but purely from a financial standpoint--the benefit of having seniors get prescription drug coverage, getting, for example, these anticoagulant drugs that cost about $1,000 a year, and seeing a savings as a result of the older person not having a stroke, of that person not incurring $100,000 in expenses that would be involved in treating the stroke. I was director of the Gray Panthers at home for about 7 years before I was elected to the Congress. Prescription drugs were important then. You would always hear from seniors that they want this coverage. But the prescriptions today are even more important because they can help keep seniors well. Prescriptions today, helping to lower blood pressure, helping lower cholesterol, are drugs that are going to help us hold costs down for the Medicare program. As we all know, Medicare Part A, the hospital portion, the institutional portion of the program is particularly expensive, and these drugs today, if we can get decent Medicare coverage for the Nation's older people, will help us save some of the money that would otherwise be spent under Part A of the program when seniors incur these debilitating illnesses. I intend, as I have done now on 12 occasions, to keep coming to the floor to urge seniors to send in copies of their prescription drug bills directly to us in the Senate in hopes we can get bipartisan action. I am very proud that the Snowe-Wyden funding plan got 54 votes, a majority of votes in the Senate already for going forward with a specific plan to fund this program, but I am sure colleagues have other ideas. The distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee is here. He has been very involved in the question of Medicare. I was very honored when Senator Moynihan, last week, spoke favorably about the SPICE legislation we have introduced. Colleagues have plenty of ideas on how to deal with it, but what is important is we go forward in a bipartisan way and not wait until after another election which is literally a year away. In the hope the Senate will act in a bipartisan way, I intend to keep coming back to the floor to discuss this issue. I yield the floor.