Ron Wyden: “I want to conclude on another pocketbook issue for the middle class by talking about health care. I am a Senator who…”

“I want to conclude on another pocketbook issue for the middle class by talking about health care. I am a Senator who believes there ought to be private choices in American health care. There are some who think that all the health care ought to be privatized, some who think that Government ought to do everything. I am one who believes there is a role for both the private sector and for Government in health care. Unfortunately, I voted for the Medicare prescription drug program. As a former director of the Oregon Gray Panthers, I still have the welts on my back to show for it. I never conceived that the administration of this program could be so bungled. We have bedlam out there right now with seniors with advanced degrees trying to sort all this out. Again, it did not have to be this way. If, for example, the administration had at least standardized the policies a little bit so that people could compare the various prescription drug coverages available, we could have avoided this chaos. There is a model for this as well, a model used for the private health insurance supplements that seniors bought to add to their Medicare. Before I came to Congress, I was director of the Gray Panthers. It was not uncommon for a senior to have 10, 15 private health insurance policies. We drained that swamp. Now seniors for the most part have only one Medigap policy. It meets their needs. The insurance industry has indicated it works for them.…”