Frank Pallone: “I wanted to spend the time this evening talking about the need for a Medicare prescription drug program and also…”

“I wanted to spend the time this evening talking about the need for a Medicare prescription drug program and also highlight the fact that more and more of my constituents, and I know this is true all over the country, are concerned about the price of prescription drugs and their inability to buy the medicine or prescription drugs that they feel that is necessary. I have been to the floor, to the well here many times over the last 2 years, basically saying that we need on the one hand a benefit, a Federal benefit under Medicare to provide prescription drug funding for seniors through Medicare, through the Federal Government and through the Medicare program. But at the same time I have said that we need the coverage that would come from a Federal benefit, we also need to deal with the issue of price because prices continue to go up. I know that many times during the debate that we had a few weeks ago over prescription drugs, when the Republican leadership would talk about their initiative, their bill that ultimately passed the House, and compare it with the Democratic proposal, which they did not allow to come to the floor, that there had been a hot and heated discussion about the differences between the two bills. Of course, I have been very critical of the Republican proposal because it is not Medicare.”