Elijah Cummings: “I will close by simply thanking the Members of Congressional Black Caucus for being here tonight and being a part of all…”

“I will close by simply thanking the Members of Congressional Black Caucus for being here tonight and being a part of all of this. I have often said that a hundred years ago, none of us were here. A hundred years from now, none of us will be here. The critical question is what do we do while we are here to lift each other up. The fact is that we have a bill on the floor of this House tomorrow which is supposed to be a prescription benefit bill when, in fact, it does much more harm than good. And I think that when all the dust settles, when everything is laid out very clearly, the question becomes, Have we lifted our seniors up? So many of them have begged for relief. So many of them have cut pills in half and in quarters. So many of them have gone from one drug store to another begging for prescriptions. So many of them have almost broken out in tears when they found out that their doctor did not have the sample prescription drugs that they needed, and so we stand here tonight not only saying that we consider the prescription drug bill to be bad, bad news, but we also on the other hand, Mr. Speaker, offer our HealthCare Equality Accountability Act of 2003 to say that we have a piece of legislation that does not cure everything but certainly it helps; but on the other hand, we have another piece of legislation, the prescription drug bill which does so much harm.”