Henry Waxman: “If Members listen carefully to the last speaker, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, I think they understand why we need…”

“If Members listen carefully to the last speaker, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, I think they understand why we need this motion to instruct, because seniors need to know that the drug benefit is going to be a real one, not one that could depend on the whims of one insurance company or another. When the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) went through her explanation, she had 25 ways this will all work, this company will compete against that company. Well, the truth of the matter is these companies do not want to compete with each other, and that is why the Republican bill gives money to the insurance companies to try to get them to provide the benefit, rather than put it in as a benefit in Medicare, which is the way Medicare pays for doctors and hospitals and physical therapists and occupational therapists. So what we are hoping to do is have the conferees come back with the Senate provision that says, if all this insurance business does not work out as the Republicans hope it will, seniors can count on a prescription drug benefit being there. The second reason why we need this instruction to the conferees is we do not want the Republican conferees to use the prescription drug issue as a stalking horse to destroy the Medicare program as seniors know it and like it and want it to continue.”