Lloyd Bentsen: “later this week, the Republican leadership will bring to the floor a bill purporting to be a new prescription drug…”

“later this week, the Republican leadership will bring to the floor a bill purporting to be a new prescription drug benefit for America's senior citizens. Yesterday, I gave a number of reasons why the Republican prescription drug bill is fatally flawed and issued a challenge to the Republican majority to allow the Democrats to put forth our own prescription drug plan. Today, I want to stress the hypocrisy of the Republicans' procedure for considering this important issue. Rather than allow an open and honest debate on how Congress would provide for a prescription drug benefit for America's senior citizens, the Republicans apparently will script a closed rule with limited debate predicated on an arbitrary budget resolution which they have shown a willingness time and again to violate when it suits their purposes. Unfortunately, both their flawed insurance subsidy plan and their desire to stifle debate in this the people's House on a question of vital importance to nearly 40 million American Medicare beneficiaries indicates once and for all that responding to the needs of America's senior citizens does not suit the political purposes of congressional Republicans. The Republicans' claim that no Medicare prescription drug benefit can exceed the cost of $40 billion over 5 years is false. As such, they have designed a flawed plan that fits neatly under this cap by delaying implementation and limiting catastrophic coverage only to those costs that exceed $6,000.…”