Sylvester Turner: “I had a similar experience to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett). I talked to a lady in August during my tour of the…”

“I had a similar experience to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett). I talked to a lady in August during my tour of the district when I was going around to 40 communities talking about this very issue, and she came up to me and she said that her HMO had just canceled her and she wanted to know from me what I could do to help her. It would almost bring tears to your eyes. She was a kidney transplant patient. From January until August, her prescription bills totaled $17,000. That had been covered by her HMO. As of December 31, she has no coverage, like 5,000 other seniors in my district. Now, most of my seniors I talk to have prescription drug bills of $300, $400, $500. Many of them are paying their entire Social Security check just to cover their prescription drugs. This lady has $17,000 just from January through August. I could not tell her what she was going to do. I had no answer for her. I told her about what we are fighting for in Congress, why we believe that we need a prescription drug benefit under traditional Medicare. I talked to a fellow at a bank down in Liberty County. He told me that he and his wife spend $1,400 a month on prescription drugs. Now, I did not have the heart to ask him how long could he keep doing that. But these stories are real stories from real people who have real problems.”