Frank Pallone: “I kept hearing my Republican colleagues talk about parity for Federal employees; and I support this billing as well…”

“I kept hearing my Republican colleagues talk about parity for Federal employees; and I support this billing as well, because I do believe that Federal retirees should have good prescription drug benefits. But it is not an issue of parity. It is an issue of hypocrisy, hypocrisy because the Republicans say that they want to preserve a generous prescription drug benefit for Federal retirees, but at the same time they were not willing to provide it for the other seniors around the country. The bottom line is that the Medicare prescription drug benefit that the Republicans have proposed both in this House and the other House is no real benefit. It is a meaningless benefit. It is not generous enough that anybody would even sign up for it. And they wanted to make sure that the Federal retirees do not get stuck being forced into that Medicare system that they have proposed, which essentially gives an almost worthless prescription drug benefit to most seniors. Well, there is a lot of hypocrisy saying you want to preserve it for the Members of Congress, for the President, and for Federal retirees, but not give it to seniors in general.”