Sylvester Turner: “I come to the floor tonight during this special order hour with my colleagues... to talk about the problem of the high…”

“I come to the floor tonight during this special order hour with my colleagues... to talk about the problem of the high price of prescription drugs being paid by our senior citizens. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit as we begin tonight about what I believe to be the coming crisis in health care for our senior citizens. Just last week, most of us were in our districts over the July 4th holiday, and we had the chance to talk to our constituents. I had numerous senior citizens coming up to me and talking about the letter they had received from their HMO, from their insurance company telling them that as of the 1st of January, their Medicare choice policy, their HMO Medicare plan was going to be discontinued by their insurance company. In fact, in East Texas, we have almost 5,000 seniors who are receiving these notices from their insurance companies, companies like Aetna, NYL Care, Humana are sending out notices to these seniors saying you are canceled, no longer can you have our Medicare choice HMO coverage.”