Political Quotes

“that also brings competition to the negotiation of prices. If we just have the government negotiating, first of all, it is not a for-profit entity. It is not going to have the incentive to drive a hard bargain; it is just going to set prices with no return. But if we have a handful of companies competing to service a senior population in a competitive model, if you believe in freedom and competition and all of those things that we do, we are going to get a better product. I am excited, and I supported the bill. I think it will be helpful for seniors. I wanted to highlight that on the prescription drug issue. One other aspect of the prescription drug issue is the number one thing that seniors came up to me before the vote that they were concerned about was whether they would lose the coverage that they had that was promised to them in their pension and benefit plans. They would pull me off the parade route or after church, wherever I was, Will I lose it? There are 41 million seniors in the Medicare system, and 13 million are covered by prescription drug plans through their pension and benefit plans. Thirteen million. We could never assume that additional cost, so we have to provide a provision in this to incentivize the pension and benefit plans to keep providing. That is a promise that we provided to these seniors, and that is in the bill. So we met their need.”