Byron Dorgan: “We wanted to visit a bit about the issue of a prescription drug benefit for the Medicare program. Almost everyone in…”

“We wanted to visit a bit about the issue of a prescription drug benefit for the Medicare program. Almost everyone in this country now understands that the price of prescription drugs is moving up very quickly. Last year, the price of prescription drugs increased very rapidly. In fact, the cost of prescription drugs last year alone, because of increased utilization, price inflation and other things, increased 16 percent. The senior citizens in this country are 12 percent of our country's population but consume one-third of all the prescription drugs in America. Senior citizens are at a point in their lives where they have reached declining and diminished income years and they are least able, in many cases, to be able to afford to pay increasing prescription drug prices.”