Bill Nelson: “I wish to talk about cancer as well as finalize details of this appropriations bill which includes more than $5 billion…”

“I wish to talk about cancer as well as finalize details of this appropriations bill which includes more than $5 billion for the Cancer Institute. I am reminded of a related issue that threatens cancer care in this country. I am extremely concerned with several provisions in the Medicare prescription drug coverage bill already passed by the Senate and the House. As we know, when the Medicare Program was first enacted, much of the care provided to patients was delivered in the hospital inpatient setting. That was 1965 when Medicare was enacted. Over the course of the next 37 years, as science and medicine has progressed, patient care has shifted dramatically to the physician's office. Perhaps nowhere has this shift been more prevalent than in cancer care. Today, over 80 percent of all care is delivered in physicians' offices, and that is cancer care. This is due in large part to the introduction of the new outpatient drugs which have significantly reduced the need for inpatient hospital care for cancer patients. If Congress was designing the Medicare Program today, in 2003, instead of in 1965, there is little doubt that outpatient prescription drug coverage would be a central part of that program.”