Deborah Koff Ross: “Number 1, the discount is not being paid by the drug manufacturer, which is 87 percent of the cost to the manufacturer.…”

“Number 1, the discount is not being paid by the drug manufacturer, which is 87 percent of the cost to the manufacturer. The discount is being paid by your family pharmacy in amounts of 50 cents to $3. More importantly, and I do not think this has ever been raised on the floor of this House, but this bill preempts State laws that regulate discount cards. About half the States in America, because these cards are so fly-by-night and so fraudulent and have ripped off so many seniors, because they find out the benefit they are getting from it is less than what they charge per month for the card, that most States in America now have regulations to monitor and control these so-called discount prescription drug cards. This bill preempts those State laws. There will be no regulation of these discount card companies. Max Richtman is the head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. I want to say they are a bipartisan group. They are not. They are nonpartisan, and they are nonprofit. That is the Nation's second largest senior advocacy group, and I think he put it pretty well. He said, Have you ever heard of Medicare fraud? This Republican prescription drug bill, it is Medicare fraud. It is nothing more than a false hope and a false promise for our seniors. This is America, and we can do better than this by our seniors, by our greatest generation.”