Nancy L. Johnson

We certainly are willing to accept the gentleman's amendment. It is a very thoughtful and important one.

Yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof). (Mr. HULSHOF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I would be happy to respond. Actuaries estimate things differently. The CMS actuaries estimate that 1.1 million won't sign up if we move the deadline. In other words, they will lose the pressure they have today to sign up by May 15 and the…

This is a negotiation. And what you are doing is prejudging the negotiation. That is what a motion to instruct does. This motion to instruct is across so many categories that it will do damage to our ability to get the right answer in all…

But we need to do something better than the Senate position, and we certainly need to avoid the additional 2 percent cut that starts every year thereafter.

I absolutely do. I think we are facing the possibility of physicians fleeing the Medicare program and creating a real access problem for seniors to physicians of their choice. But acceding to the Senate position is not going to fix it; it…

Does the gentleman feel confident even without any placeholder, should, say, the Senate fail to provide a placeholder, as they have in the past, that we will be able to address this in conference?

I also want to say both to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and also to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that you have brought forward for this body a very fine, balanced bill in a difficult era. The money that you have put into…

The gentlewoman from Oregon should know that with this prescription drug insurance plan Medicare recipients in Oregon who are covered will go from 60 percent up to 96.6 percent. This bill brings a benefit to Oregon.

I do not consider the AARP a special interest group, or the Coalition to Ensure Patient Access a special interest group, or the Alzheimer's Association a special interest group, or the Kidney Cancer Association a special interest group.

This legislation is nearly identical to H.R. 3146, a bill the House unanimously approved last week. The only change is the addition of a 6-month extension of expiring Medicare payment provisions affecting hospitals in small cities and…

It is simply my belief that within the time frame of this extension, we will be able to permanently reauthorize the welfare program and add to it the more flexible provisions that are in the underlying bill with some interest that the…

Absolutely. That is exactly what I am saying. The fallback provision in the Senate bill will lead to drug prices that will cost our bill 8 to $12 billion more.

This is simple, serious, and sad. Significant errors of utterance and judgment were made by members of the Committee on Ways and Means of both parties this morning. The chairman responded to what were fast-paced comments and actions. There…

I do want to say that often very small amendments are extremely important. This amendment is absolutely key to reducing the costs of drugs. There are many expensive products on the market that are no better than aspirin, and we need to be…

This is a historic evening. It is our opportunity tonight to provide prescription drugs to all seniors under Medicare as an entitlement and to do it in a way that is fair, simple and generous and sustainable. It is our opportunity tonight…

Scare tactics have no place in this debate. There are no vouchers in this bill. In 2010, a senior that wants to be in the Medicare program will be in the Medicare program exactly as they are now. They will be in that Medicare program and…

Remember, one of the primary goals of the other party's approach, the Democrats' approach on that subcommittee, was to include as a major goal of the new welfare reform bill to reduce poverty and, indeed, we did that. Second, They were…

I want to mention that the Congressional Budget Office in their letter to us made clear that exempting Medicare prescription drug plans from Medicaid's best price drives down drug prices $18 billion for our seniors.

Every woman gets a free physical under this bill, and for the first time they have an option for a plan that provides entirely free preventative benefits across the board to men and women. So this is an enormous advancement for women…

We fix all the problems with reimbursements for mammography so they will be more accessible to the women of America. Furthermore, we provide access for something that is extremely important to women, more important to women than men, and…

Here it is. When they go and apply for the unemployment compensation benefits, it says in the bill they certify they are unemployed with the Social Security number.

There are two questions here. First of all, let me answer the subsidy one. We provide 60 percent subsidy of the premiums, and we let people buy that plan that CRS has.

Let me just set the record straight. Your bill does not pay people's COBRA benefits. It pays a percent of the COBRA premium, and through our bill we would pay a percent of the COBRA premium, and all of the rhetoric on the floor about how…