Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “Mr. Speaker, we have a very important question to answer today: Should we provide prescription drugs for all seniors, or…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have a very important question to answer today: Should we provide prescription drugs for all seniors, or should we provide tax shelters for the few? That is our question. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in instructing the conferees on H.R. 1 to make our Nation's seniors our top priority as set forth in the Schakowsky motion to instruct. The prescription drug bill that is before us is supposed to help and not harm our seniors, and yet H.R. 1 has 12 million seniors in this country running scared. These are supposedly the fortunate seniors, the ones who work for companies that promised they would provide retiree health coverage if the employees put in the time required. But the flawed structure of H.R. 1 will ultimately destroy that commitment. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that up to 32 percent of retirees will lose their employer-sponsored coverage and drug benefits under the House bill. Thirty-two percent of America's seniors, the retirees, will lose their employer-sponsored coverage under the House bill. That is unacceptable. A separate study by economist Ken Thorpe came to similar conclusions and noted that in my home State of Texas, 280,000 retirees would lose coverage. That is one-quarter of a million seniors. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is just not exactly the kind of thing that you want to put in your constituent newsletter that you send back home.”