Olympia Snowe: “Senator Wyden and I broke new ground together when we introduced the first bipartisan Medicare Prescription drug bill…”

“Senator Wyden and I broke new ground together when we introduced the first bipartisan Medicare Prescription drug bill known as SPICE back in 1999. And after Congress passed the historic Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, Senator Wyden and I authored legislation aimed at ensuring long term value of the drug benefit to seniors. Today we are joined again by Senator Feinstein, who has been committed with us to forging a bipartisan effort to do what we must today--to move beyond offering a benefit and ensure that we meet our obligation to address affordability. When we consider both a recent ten year cost estimate of over $534 billion for the prescription drug benefit, and drug price increases which have rapidly outpaced inflation and earnings, we could see the benefit to seniors depreciated--and the cost to the Federal Government increased. So today we introduce The Medicare Enhancements for Needed Drugs Act of 2005, MEND, today to manage costs, and assure seniors will receive better value for their dollar. This bill provides both better consumer information to help beneficiaries and the negotiation power to assure that the power of millions of seniors will result in competitive pricing. That is why two of our colleagues--Senators McCain and Feingold--have now joined us in this effort. Ours is a simple approach informed by a ``healthy dosage'' of common sense.”