Lois Capps: “I also rise, like the previous speaker, to express my outrage at the recent announcement that Medicare premiums will go…”

“I also rise, like the previous speaker, to express my outrage at the recent announcement that Medicare premiums will go up by 17 percent in 2005. This will eat up half of a senior's Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. At the same time, Medicare itself is shoveling an additional $46 billion to managed-care companies so that they can push seniors into HMOs. This is just another example of how the Bush administration puts the interests of the drug and insurance companies over our seniors' interests. They passed a bill, written by the drug companies, that prevented Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices for seniors and blocking reimportation from Canada. The bill pushes seniors out of traditional Medicare and puts them at the tender mercies of the HMOs. To sum up this President's Medicare policy: seniors pay higher premiums and higher drug costs so Medicare can give more money to HMOs and the drug companies.”