Frank Pallone: “The second thing is what the Republicans have done with these tax cuts, of course, is to drive us back into debt where…”

“The second thing is what the Republicans have done with these tax cuts, of course, is to drive us back into debt where we are now using the Medicare and Social Security trust funds to pay for daily operating expenses of the Federal Government. I would much rather see the Medicare trust fund used for a Medicare benefit, like prescription drugs, rather than to run the country, because that is not what it is for. It is supposedly for the Medicare program. The last thing, and in many ways the most important, is the fact that we provide a generous benefit under Medicare, and we are not proposing anything that is out of line. We are just modeling it after part B. Part A of Medicare pays for the hospital bills, and part B pays for the doctor bills. And right now if an individual wants their doctor bills paid for, they pay a premium, I think it is like $45 a month, with a $100 a year deductible, and 80 percent of the cost of the doctor bills are paid for by the Federal Government. Well, we are doing the same thing with our bill. Our bill says we will create a new part D, where an individual pays only $25 per month for their premium, they have a $100 deductible, and 80 percent of the cost of their drug bills, up to $2,000, is paid for by the Federal Government. After that, it is 100 percent. This is not rocket science here. This is just the same old, same old Medicare, but now using the same principle used for paying doctors we are now using to pay for prescription drugs.”