Bart Stupak: “As you were saying, if the Secretary of Health and Human Services cannot negotiate, so we give your mother, who is 93…”

“As you were saying, if the Secretary of Health and Human Services cannot negotiate, so we give your mother, who is 93 years old, this voucher, who negotiates for her? It is $4,500. There is no guarantee it will not go up. What happens if it does go up? So how do these plans, who are not under the care of the government, keep your costs down? They will restrict the access to the pharmaceuticals, because that is the most rapidly rising part of health care. So instead of providing that benefit, they will provide you with a voucher to take care of all your health care needs and then for the prescription drugs, if you have some left over, but only if that plan will cover the prescription drug you need. It is really crazy. Any drug that is not in the plan's formulary would not be covered. Beneficiaries would have to pay then 100 percent out-of-pocket of the costs of that drug because it is not in their plan, it is not in that voucher that they got. I think the gentleman from Washington makes a great point, how do we know what mine, yours or your parents' health care needs will be 3 or 4 years from now? Once you go into these plans, can you come back in to traditional Medicare? Probably, but at a cost you cannot afford.”