Nancy L. Johnson

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…

Today, is an historic day for America's seniors. Congress is about to fulfill the promise and the potential of Medicare, which has been one of our greatest success stories in our history; but when Medicare was created in 1965, prescription…

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…

This bill is not turning our back; it is facing reality. To pass the substitute would be turning your back on 12,000 people who live in States that do not yet have compliant programs and, therefore, will not be able to get the 65 percent…

I want to make clear that they would not have been covered, because those women were dying of the infections caused by being forced to get back-alley abortions under unsterile circumstances. If they had been allowed to be in a hospital and…

Mr. Chairman, today's vote really is about our values, the ability to balance the value we place on critical environmental resources, unique ecosystems supporting literally hundreds of thousands of species of animals, birds and fishes, and…

I urge my colleagues to vote down this motion to recommit and pass the bill. We are adding $2 billion in money for child care for the States. But beyond that, remember that we are giving the States exactly the amount of money we gave them…

I may not need the whole 3 minutes, but I want very much to talk about this issue of work requirements because, first of all, all the studies show that welfare reform was most successful in the States with the most stringent work…

if we followed the course of action that the gentleman is suggesting, and no one would like to do that more than I; I think we have to address all of these issues; that is what we did in the payer package and that is what we have to do in…

Mr. Speaker, I rise because we have gotten things done. We passed a budget resolution. The Senate did not act. We passed a number of budget bills. The Senate did not act. We passed a prescription drug bill, the biggest expansion of…

Mr. Speaker this is the most important vote I will have cast in my 20 years in Congress. I was here to cast my vote to go to war against Iraq in 1991. That was a definable conflict involving an aggressor who had to be stopped by the…

If we are out there talking to our constituents, if we keep in touch with the medical communities, not just the doctors but the hospitals, the little home health agencies, and if we listen, we will know that our Nation is galloping toward…

I know this is a difficult issue for everybody and I regret to have to rise in strong opposition to this rule and to encourage the Republicans and Democrats, pro-life and pro-choice, to oppose this rule. I do not know how many of you know…

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…

Twelve days, 12 days. In 12 days, the welfare reform legislation expires. Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious matter. This House passed reauthorization of the welfare reform legislation on May 16. The Senate has not acted. We have 12 days…

I would remind the preceding speaker that the Senate has not acted on welfare reform and the Senate has not acted on prescription drugs. The House has reauthorized welfare reform and the House has passed a very strong bill providing…

First of all, there are no third-term abortions of healthy babies in America. It is illegal. But it is an absolutely horrendous insult to the women of America to think that we would carry an infant through pregnancy and arbitrarily and…

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…

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 have had a parade of my colleagues from the other side claim that this legislation is harmful to senior women. I wonder how they could have so lost touch with the lives of women in America and women in their districts. This bill…

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.

Mr. Speaker, to those who say the benefit in this bill is not rich enough, I would ask them to remember that Medicare spending, despite the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997, is still growing at an unsustainable rate. As a share of…

As a result of our arcane and complicated pension laws, 70 million workers have no pension plan. Unfortunately, Americans who work in small businesses are much less likely to have pension coverage than those who work for larger companies…

I am proud to say that our bill is an entitlement. It is going to be available to all seniors. It is going to be in my estimation, I think this is something that is rarely remembered, that the prescription drug benefit is going to be the…

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…