Frank Pallone: “this evening I plan to spend most of the time discussing the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. I come to…”

“this evening I plan to spend most of the time discussing the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. I come to the well, to the floor this evening primarily because of my concern that the House Republican leadership is talking about, certainly presenting itself to the media, that they intend to bring up a prescription drug proposal at some point over the next couple of weeks. I am very concerned that their proposal is really nothing more than a sham and not something that is actually going to benefit any significant portion of the senior population. I thought what I would do this evening is that I would start out by sort of outlining what I believe, and what Democrats as a whole in the House of Representatives feel we should be doing about prescription drugs. First of all, I should say that the Democrats feel very strongly that the biggest problem with prescription drugs is the cost. The fact of the matter is that whether one is a senior, whether one is over 65 or whether one is under 65, it is getting to be more and more difficult to pay for one's medicine, because of the fact that the prices keep going up every year. Double-digit inflation, essentially, we have had with regard to prescription drug prices for the last 6 years. Every year, the cost goes up by a double digit percentage point.”