Deborah Koff Ross: “Members of Congress pay 25 percent of the cost of the medicine, at least under the health plan that I am on and most of…”

“Members of Congress pay 25 percent of the cost of the medicine, at least under the health plan that I am on and most of us are on. There are several options to choose from, and anyone with private health insurance, and again we have got 43.6 million people without health insurance in this country. Ten million of them unfortunately are children, but most people fortunate enough to have health insurance pay roughly 20 to 25 percent of the cost of the medicine. So in the first $5,044, Members of Congress pay $1,261, but the Republican national leadership wants our mothers and grandmothers and fathers and grandfathers to pay $4,020.25 out of the first $5,044, and that is a benefit that does not even kick in until 2006. I will give them this. Starting in April of 2004, they are going to give our seniors a prescription drug discount card. You stay up late enough tonight and watch cable TV. They will be advertised on TV. You can buy them, and any discount that is realized from that card comes directly from your family pharmacy and not from the big drug manufacturer. Again, they are not going to the root of the cause. Eighty-seven percent of the costs of medicine comes from the big drug manufacturer. This discount card does not discount any of the money paid by the big drug manufacturer, and so the savings amounts to 50 cents to $3. They did a study on this. This literally amounts to 50 cents to $3.”