Jack Kingston: “effective June 1, each senior on Medicare who would like one could get a Medicare prescription drug discount card. This…”

“effective June 1, each senior on Medicare who would like one could get a Medicare prescription drug discount card. This card will be good for about a 20 percent discount in most local pharmacies. What the senior could do is dial 1-800-Medicare or go to WWW.MEDICARE.GOV and find out which of the local drugstores has the best deal on Lipitor or Glucophage or whatever he or she uses on a regular basis, and then, if it works, if it is a good idea, invest anywhere from $20 to $30, in that neighborhood, and choose which card is the best and start enjoying a 20 percent discount. This is a program that precedes the 2006 voluntary program which was signed by President Bush, passed by this House and the Senate and endorsed by the AARP to give seniors on Medicare a prescription drug benefit. It is a voluntary program, it reduces drug costs by about 50 percent, and it is something that we did not have in Medicare as an option before. It is a very good program, and I invite seniors to call 1-800 Medicare and take a look at it.”