Janice Schakowsky: “the Medicare Modernization Act: good for the HMOs, great for the pharmaceutical companies, bad for seniors and bad for…”

“the Medicare Modernization Act: good for the HMOs, great for the pharmaceutical companies, bad for seniors and bad for persons with disabilities. Let us consider the numbers. $54 million: That is the amount drug companies spent lobbying Congress and the administration between 1997 and 2002. 675: That is the number of paid drug company lobbyists, more than 1 for each of the 535 Members of the U.S. House and Senate. $67.7 million: That is the amount of drug company political contributions since 1999, and Republicans received 71 percent of those. $891,208: That is the amount of drug company campaign contributions President Bush has received since 1999. Zero: That is the number of Democrats who were allowed into the conference committee when this bill was finally crafted, the bill that was supposed to provide relief to seniors but really has provided great relief to the drug companies. That means that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), veterans of the House and experts on Medicare, were locked out of the committee. Twenty-three percent: the percent of average Americans' out-of-pocket medical expenses spent on prescription drugs. Seventy percent: the amount of discounts the Veterans' Administration obtains on cholesterol medications by using its bargaining clout with the pharmaceutical companies, something not allowed for Medicare beneficiaries.”