Political Quotes

“another concern I have--and it is not a concern with the bill; it is just the marketing of the bill--is to suggest that their plan will move forward immediately. One of the comments made was that the plan before us does not take effect until 2006, and their plan will take place as soon as possible. Let me just suggest, we went to CMS, which is the organization within the Government that runs Medicare, and other experts in the field and asked: When is the soonest possible we can have this drug benefit in place? And they said: It would not be prudent to do so before 2006, to promise before 2006, because it is rather complicated to put together. So the reason we put in 2006 is we want a backstop. The Durbin amendment has no backstop. It just says: As soon as possible. Who knows how long that will be? We have a backstop, focusing on getting this ready for 2006, which I think is actually beneficial, and, at the same time, it does not rush the process that potentially could do something that would be imprudent and, potentially, ineffective in moving forward a plan. So I think 2006, given all the expertise we have in this town as to what would be the proper timeframe, is the right answer. It is a good balance between making sure there is a date certain and that it is fairly quick and, at the same time, not too quick as to cause problems.”