Chuck Hagel: “we have spent 4 days debating and voting on two Medicare prescription drug proposals, the Graham-Miller-Kennedy bill and…”

“we have spent 4 days debating and voting on two Medicare prescription drug proposals, the Graham-Miller-Kennedy bill and the so-called tripartisan bill. I have worked with Senators Ensign, Lugar, Phil Gramm, Inhofe, Santorum, and Gregg to introduce relevant, straightforward, realistic legislation to add a prescription drug benefit to our Medicare Program. Our legislation would create a permanent Medicare prescription drug program that would be available to all Medicare beneficiaries beginning January 1, 2004. We keep it affordable to both beneficiaries and taxpayers. We do it without creating a new Federal Government bureaucracy. The program is not perfect. None of the Medicare prescription drug bills we have considered have been perfect. This bill accomplishes a very important goal. This bill gives seniors the peace of mind that comes with knowing they have security from extremely high drug costs, catastrophic costs that ruin families. Why are we engaged in this debate? Medicare was created, as we all know, in 1965--and it is a 1965 model. Preventive health care, like diet, lifestyle, and exercise, was not emphasized in 1965. Prescription drugs were not as widely prescribed or used. Research had not developed the kind of lifestyles and life expectancies and quality of life we now enjoy--prescription drugs, pharmaceutical research, being the core of that development.”