Chuck Grassley: “Medicare has not kept pace with the improvements in health care since its inception in 1965. It was a plan that was put…”

“Medicare has not kept pace with the improvements in health care since its inception in 1965. It was a plan that was put together based on the practice of medicine in 1965, which you might expect to be natural for any program written at that particular time. At that particular time, the practice of medicine was to put almost anybody in the hospital who had anything very serious wrong with them. Today, the practice of medicine is to keep people out of the hospital environment as much as we can. Prescription drugs are very much a part of the medical plan to keep people out of hospitals. Back in 1965, the cost of prescription drugs as part of the total cost of medicine was about 1 percent. Today the practice of medicine and the cost of medicine related to the total practice of medicine is about 10, 11 percent. So quite obviously, if Medicare is to be brought into the 21st century, we have to modernize it by including a prescription drug program for everybody, not just like it has been, prescription drugs for people who are in the hospital, but once you leave the hospital, no prescription drugs. We have assumed a responsibility, some of us. I think maybe all 100 Senators agree on this issue, although they may not agree on how to do it, but we have all come to the conclusion that if you are going to strengthen and improve Medicare for the 21st century, Medicare must include a prescription drug program.”