Ron Wyden: “Senator Snowe will close this afternoon for our bipartisan amendment, but I want to highlight a couple of points. There…”

“Senator Snowe will close this afternoon for our bipartisan amendment, but I want to highlight a couple of points. There is a reason that AARP strongly supports the Snowe-Wyden amendment. There is a reason that Secretary Thompson, before he left the Health and Human Services Department, said he wanted this authority, and that is this is just plain common sense. Everybody else in the marketplace who is in a position to use their clout does it but not Medicare. I want to set the record straight on a couple of comments that were made by my friend, the chairman of the Finance Committee. Again, at lines 13 and 14 of the bipartisan Snowe-Wyden amendment, in addition to the prohibition against price controls, there is a prohibition against a uniform formulary. So we are using all of the same forces in the marketplace of the private sector under this amendment that go on all across the land today. There are no price controls. There is no uniform formulary. For colleagues who want to see the language, it is at line 13 and line 14 of the Snowe-Wyden amendment. Let us have some practical, smart shopping with respect to this program, where the costs are going into the stratosphere. I don't know of anybody in the United States who would shop the way Medicare is shopping today for prescription drugs. It would be one thing if it was working. AARP supports this amendment because the cost of medicine is rising twice the rate of inflation.…”