Debbie Dingell: “rather than bringing legislation to the House floor that would actually help senior citizens get the prescription drugs…”

“rather than bringing legislation to the House floor that would actually help senior citizens get the prescription drugs they need and address some of the problems that they are having with the new drug benefit, the Republican leadership has brought forward an ``advertisement'' in the form of a meaningless resolution that does nothing, absolutely nothing, to make it easier for seniors to enroll in the prescription drug plan. Instead, they are encouraging our constituents to beat an artificial deadline and enroll in these plans without having accurate information to prevent them from enrolling in a plan that does not meet their needs. The independent Government watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, recently reported that a good deal of the information that Medicare is providing on this new drug benefit is wrong or incomprehensible to the average beneficiary. For example, Medicare representatives gave an incorrect answer 60 percent of the time when they were asked to help a beneficiary find the lowest-cost plan to enroll in. These findings also point to larger problems. Because of inaccurate, complicated, or confusing information, seniors have not been given a fair shake. Why is the House not addressing these matters? We should be here today voting on a bill to extend the May 15 deadline and helping seniors avoid an unfair and unnecessary penalty.…”