Sylvester Turner: “I had a lady come up to me in Orange, Texas, as I was talking about this legislation at one of my local pharmacies, a…”

“I had a lady come up to me in Orange, Texas, as I was talking about this legislation at one of my local pharmacies, a lovely lady named Frances Staley. She happened to be blind. She was very a proud lady, and she was telling me about how important she thought this issue was and how much she supported what we are trying to do. I began to ask her about her situation. She told me that she has $650 a month in social security. That is her total check. She told me that she has $540 worth of prescription drug bills every month. She has nine different medications that she has to take. We were standing there, with her pharmacy over there, and she looked over and said, I am just glad that my pharmacist will give me credit. I still said to her, but if you have $540 in prescription drug bills every month and you only have $650 from social security, how do you live? And she leaned over to me in that proud sort of way, and said, well, sometimes I just take half my medication. Now, no senior citizen should have to make that choice. That is why we are here today.”