Shelley Berkley: “I am here to discuss an issue that is absolutely crucial to seniors across America, Medicare coverage for prescription…”

“I am here to discuss an issue that is absolutely crucial to seniors across America, Medicare coverage for prescription drugs. This is one of the most important issues that Congress will work on this year. This is a defining issue. Who exactly do we represent in this body? Do we represent millions of older Americans or do we represent the CEOs of the pharmaceutical companies? Seniors have the greatest need for prescription drugs. In many cases medicine is the most effective, perhaps the only, treatment for illness; and yet one-third of senior citizens do not have any prescription drug coverage at all. This means that millions of seniors in our country have no prescription drug insurance, and soaring drug prices are putting necessary medications out of their reach. They simply cannot afford them. Nowhere is this problem more apparent than in my district in southern Nevada. Southern Nevada has the fastest growing senior population in the United States. When I go home every weekend, my seniors tell me about the drugs they are taking, the medications they need. They tell me how much they cost, and they tell me how difficult it is and what difficult choices they have to make.”