Don Nickles: “I wish to make a couple of comments in regard to Medicare, Medicaid, and prescription drugs, and to speak in opposition…”

“I wish to make a couple of comments in regard to Medicare, Medicaid, and prescription drugs, and to speak in opposition to the amendment pending before the Senate now, offered by my friend and colleague from Montana, Senator Baucus. This amendment purports to say we will do something positive on prescription drugs. It actually takes drugs away from low-income people next year, in the year 2002 and the year 2003. The underlying budget that Senator Domenici proposed in the President's budget put in significant dollars, $11.2 billion in 2002, $12.9 billion in 2003, and $14.8 billion in 2004, for low-income people, to get immediate assistance to help them buy expensive drugs. It employs medicaid to help those who can't help themselves; let's get that money to them, through the States, and make it effective now. Unfortunately, the amendment before the Senate strikes that language. It eliminates the $40-some-odd billion of the President's Helping Hand Program and increases Medicare, raising taxes and spending, without Medicare reform. I happen to be on the Finance Committee. I am in favor of Medicare reform. I want to improve Medicare and to provide prescription drug benefits. I think we can do that. To say we don't want to do anything for low-income people in the first 3 or 4 years, and to create a new entitlement for Medicare without reforming and saving Medicare simultaneously, in my opinion, is a serious mistake.”