Don Nickles: “I wish to compliment first Senator Frist and Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus for getting us here. I also compliment…”

“I wish to compliment first Senator Frist and Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus for getting us here. I also compliment President Bush because he has been pushing for us to expand Medicare to include prescription drugs. I happen to share that goal so I compliment him because here we are. I believe in the next 24, maybe 28 hours, we will eventually pass a Medicare bill that will provide prescription drugs. That is our objective. That is a good one. I hope we will be successful. I also hope we will pass a bill that is affordable. I am not sure the bill before us now meets that definition. I want to talk about what is in the bill and maybe some of the challenges we have confronting us, but again I want to compliment the chairman of the Finance Committee. This year we did have a markup in the committee, and we did report out a bill. I didn't vote for it. I will explain why I didn't vote for it. But I hope to vote for a bill either on the floor of the Senate or as the bill comes out of conference.”