Karen Thurman

I am actually here to support the bill. I, like many of my friends, am glad we have a piece of legislation before us that does address some of the issues that many of us have been concerned about and certainly one that we can find…

we just got the report. It is 150 pages long. We are going to continue to dissect it and try to figure out if there are some things that we might catch onto. But there is an issue in the report that does concern me, and it is the one that…

one of the things that is missed in this debate is that we watched the Social Security solvency, as well as Medicare, increase by year. Every year we were moving ahead, not backwards. So at first when we heard about Social Security, it was…

It was to also recognize that Social Security was never supposed to be what people would have to live off of. So if we could find these U.S.A. accounts or whatever magic name we wanted to call them, the fact of the matter was that they…

I first would say to the women who came from New Jersey here to speak to the body, we heard so eloquently today somebody talk about 'we the people,' and this being 'the people's place of business,' and so we do need to be paying attention…

People sometimes do not realize how complicated Medicare can be at times; and when one is trying to balance beneficiaries and the doctors and the contractors, sometimes we have to work through some very difficult situations. I will tell my…

I would say to my colleague who talks about gridlock, that is wrong. This House, that Senate, passed a bill, Senate to conference, and would not by the majority put on conference committee members who voted for the bill that the House…

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic Caucus drafted a balanced energy plan that was paid for, the Markey-Stenholm-Sandlin-Frost proposal, which should have had a chance to have been voted on today, but the House was denied the opportunity. My…

I believe they are important priorities. But as a result of that decision, and because this bill contains no revenue offsets, I believe that there is a substantial certainty that the tax reductions contained in the energy bill will be…

I wish to ask the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), we have been hearing about who is against this amendment, but could the gentleman give me an indication of who is for this? And, also, for the record, this was 363 to 12 the last time…

I stand today to say that I support the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis). This is a project that, in fact, is going to be completed by this winter, about 753 miles long. The fact of the matter is that in my…

here is another issue, and this hits everybody. This is not just a Medicare patient, this is now starting to hit families, working men and women across this country. I actually got the first taste of it about a year ago when a major…

That is what we are hearing at home. It really is kind of sad. I think maybe we should jump over just to one other issue quickly because I think we might even have an opportunity either this week or next week to look at something also that…

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I actually went back and looked at the vote. The vote was overwhelming. Not only on top of the vote being overwhelmingly bipartisan, also instructions to the conferees, because remembering that…

I have enjoyed this. I hope some people have been listening. We certainly would love to hear their comments or their stories or issues that make a difference in people's lives, because I think it is important that we hear from the real…

so now what is happening, and what I found in some of this work that I have been doing, is that in some of these Medicare+Choice programs, not only are they dropping a lot of their prescription drug coverage, but in some cases they will…

And that was one of those issues that in fact raised the level of it, and it causes a lot of problems for some people. But on this generic thing, I think there is something else that needs to be remembered. This is not just about seniors…

Mr. Speaker, somebody gave me a note to tell me what those three subtitles were on the profits. I will go back to that. Number one, return on revenue. Number one, return on assets. Number two, return to the shareholder equity. That is what…

Under the circumstances. And we kind of get them out there; and then we say, okay, now, go home. They go home and they have their prescription drug from their doctor, and they go to the pharmacy and all of a sudden we have got them in…

People would cry if they heard some of the letters I have gotten as we have started talking about this: wives saying I cannot take my medicine any more because my husband needs it more; or I can only take it half the time. Guess what…

What is interesting is the States have recognized the potential problem or the problem they are having, and State legislatures were getting a lot of pressure put on them to change their laws and, in fact, did in some of these legislatures…

Yes. And we also correct a somewhat curious operation where they have actually kind of been involved or engaged with some generic companies where they actually have bought out or have actually delayed the generic drug coming to the market…

The gentlewoman brings up an excellent point, and it is a point that needs to be talked about even more. As we just did the tax bill, and we are watching all these dollars kind of go out there right now, which legitimately we all agree…

Right, and the fact of the matter is that within that there is also the situation we are in now with Medicare and dollars that we have available and what is going to happen in 10 years from now when the baby boomers come in and we have…

So what happened is, all of a sudden now there is this information coming out to us that drug companies, or pharmaceutical companies, are able to extend their patents, I cannot even believe why, would extend the patents probably somewhere…