Nancy L. Johnson: “I visited a seniors' center in Oakville, which is a part of Watertown in my district. A couple got up and said, ``Our…”

“I visited a seniors' center in Oakville, which is a part of Watertown in my district. A couple got up and said, ``Our income now is $18,000 a year. Our drug bills are $16,000 a year.'' This couple has used their IRA savings, they are working on everything else, and their drug costs will force them into poverty and into dependence on Medicaid. What good will that do us? Then the taxpayers will be picking up not only the cost of their medications but also the cost of their support. It was really sad to see the sorrow in their eyes of this sort of inevitable march toward poverty, just because they needed prescription drugs. This bill that we are addressing, the gentleman is right, it is voluntary; and it does help the neediest the most, because the neediest get their premiums paid and their copayments paid as well, and for that first $1,000 people will get an 80 percent subsidy and only have to pay 20 percent, and that is off a discounted price. This bill will drive costs down for seniors right off the bat almost 30 percent, and it will do it by just simply bringing the power of all the seniors of America to the bargaining table to bargain down those prices.”