Robert Weygand: “In 1965, this Congress took a bold move in policy. It set forth a program called Medicare, because the highest costs…”

“In 1965, this Congress took a bold move in policy. It set forth a program called Medicare, because the highest costs that were encountered by our seniors was the hospital stays. Today, 35 years later, the highest costs that are being encountered and incurred by our seniors is the cost of prescription drugs. Yet when we put forward a program, a real program of reform, on how to pay for and provide for prescription drugs for our seniors, the Republicans on the Committee on the Budget turned it down. As a matter of fact, what they did was they put together a double count kind of system of providing $40 billion for Medicare reform and prescription drugs, but they counted it in another fashion as a surplus. So they have double-counted it. We indeed then put forward a program of providing $40 billion strictly for prescription drugs so that the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) and the Committee on Ways and Means and all the members of the Committee on Ways and Means could truly vote on and pass legislation that would reduce prescription drugs costs for our seniors. We have been denied that. But, more importantly, our seniors have been denied that.”