Hilda L. Solis: “women in this country need a Medicare drug benefit now. In the State of California, 56 percent of Medicare recipients…”

“women in this country need a Medicare drug benefit now. In the State of California, 56 percent of Medicare recipients are women. These elderly women have on the average spent about 10 percent of the cost for prescription drugs there, but this year alone their costs went up about 20 percent; and for people from my district particularly, this is a very, very extreme hardship. Most are on fixed incomes and cannot afford those costs, and they believe the plan that is being proposed by the Republicans today will actually make their lives worse. I know that because their plan will help to benefit HMOs and insurance companies and it is a farce. They are saying that our current drug benefit program is a Soviet-style form of government. That cannot be farther from the truth. When I go into my senior citizen centers, the first thing people ask me is, Hilda Solis, you are my representative, why is there not a better benefit program so I can pay for my treatment that I need to control my diabetes, to get my insulin, to pay for the things that I need to survive? Let us do the right thing today. Let us vote for a Democratic substitute that is fair for all people.”