Ernest Istook: “this bill will hasten the day when Medicare will go bankrupt, and it also threatens to unravel our children's future.…”

“this bill will hasten the day when Medicare will go bankrupt, and it also threatens to unravel our children's future. Medicare is already on shaky financial legs, and this will add enormous extra expenses that will make it worse. Do we expect our children to pay a lifetime of higher taxes, and still find there's nothing left for them when they retire? That is what we face. I would like to add prescription drug benefits, but it's wrong to promise something we cannot pay for. I want to preserve what's good about Medicare, not destroy it by making extravagant promises for political gain. The enormous extra spending under this bill will be far more than projected. Because today's Medicare is a huge price control system, many doctors already refuse to see Medicare patients. In just a few years this will make it worse, including price controls that will destroy the incentives for companies to create new medicines. What should we be doing? Since 76 percent of seniors already have drug coverage, we could focus on helping those who don't. But this bill undoes the coverage for those 76 percent, and puts them in a confusing new medical experiment. We should be stabilizing Medicare, so it can keep the promises already made, not making new promises that we don't have the money to keep. We should address the reasons why drug prices and healthcare costs are so high. By banning re-imported drugs, we're forcing Americans to subsidize far-lower drug prices in other countries.”