Bill Nelson: “I came to talk today about this prescription drug bill. I certainly support this bill, and I am going to vote for it. I…”

“I came to talk today about this prescription drug bill. I certainly support this bill, and I am going to vote for it. I commend the chairman and the ranking member for how they have crafted this legislation. I commend the Finance Committee for how it has put it together. If I had my druthers, we would have passed those amendments that we would have had in the last few days that we didn't pass because, clearly, giving an option for seniors to go directly through Medicare for a prescription drug benefit is, in my opinion, keeping faith with the seniors. So many of us have already suggested that we wanted to modernize Medicare from a 1965 health insurance system funded by the Federal Government for senior citizens-- modernize that to the year 2003. If you were writing Medicare today instead of in 1965, 38 years ago, would you include a prescription drug benefit? Of course you would because the miracles of modern medicine, the miracles of prescription drugs so often today will take care of the ailments and the chronic problems; so that when the Medicare system was set up in 1965--38 years ago--the state of the art of medical care was centered around a hospital and doctors. But hospitals and doctors have new tools today. Some of those tools, by the way, that I will share with you sometimes come directly out of America's space program. They are the spinoffs of technology.…”