Frank Pallone: “I wanted to take to the floor this evening to talk once again about the prescription drug issue, both the problem in…”

“I wanted to take to the floor this evening to talk once again about the prescription drug issue, both the problem in terms of more and more Americans not being able to afford the price of prescription drugs and the need to provide an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs under Medicare for America's seniors and disabled. I want to start out by saying that during the August break when I had a number of town meetings and forums and open houses at my district offices in New Jersey, this was the number one issue that my constituents came to me and talked about. Interestingly enough, it was not just the seniors who wanted to see Medicare expanded to include prescription drugs and wanted a benefit, but it was also a lot of younger people who expressed concerns about the rising cost of prescription drugs and their inability to pay for them. It amazes me that we are now back, and it is September, September 4. We have in the House of Representatives, the Congress as a whole, probably a month or 6 weeks or so at the most before we adjourn. Yet we are stuck in the fact that at this point there is no reason to believe that either a prescription drug benefit or a mechanism to control the price of prescription drugs is likely to pass before we adjourn. I think that is a tragedy.”