Byron Dorgan: “I regret there being a substantial difference between what is promised and what is delivered to senior citizens with…”

“I regret there being a substantial difference between what is promised and what is delivered to senior citizens with respect to a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program. My colleague from New Mexico indicated this is not a perfect bill. It is not. It is not a terrible bill; that is certainly the case as well. It addresses an issue that almost every Senator says needs addressing, and that is adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare Program. But I confess, the more we have dealt with this, the clearer it is to me that we are creating the most complicated, byzantine system that we possibly could have created. We had opportunities, and will continue to have them, to improve this bill. We have missed most of them in the last few days. This is a horribly complicated proposal. The Durbin amendment is an amendment that provides substantially improved benefits, and I will describe all of them. These benefits are not in the underlying legislation. The average cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens in this country is about $2,300 a year.”