Bill Delahunt: “July 18 is my birthday, and I hit that magic figure that entitles me to be eligible for Medicare. And if there is a…”

“July 18 is my birthday, and I hit that magic figure that entitles me to be eligible for Medicare. And if there is a single program that has made a difference in the lives of senior citizens, I was going to say elderly, but I think I will change that now, of senior citizens in this country, it is the Medicare program. There has been study after study which concludes that there is a connection between longevity and the advent back in 1965 of Medicare and health that now the older segment of the population enjoys. It is absolutely an essential, critical program. {time} 1845 Part of that, as Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz was saying, is the fact that today, rather than referring people to hospitals, the percentage of treatment that is given to senior citizens is through prescribed pharmaceuticals. It has made clearly a world of difference. And when we had this debate back in December of 2004, about the so- called prescription drug benefit, Democrats argued that to prohibit the Federal Government from negotiating with the large drug manufacturers for discounts, substantial discounts, as you just indicated, as they do now with the VA, was nothing but a windfall profit for large drug companies. I don't know what the estimate is now, but you said millions. Let me respectfully disagree with you and say tens of billions, maybe in excess of 100 billion, but it is clearly a substantial amount of money. Just stop and think for 1 minute. That money would eliminate the doughnut hole.…”