Jay Rockefeller: “This is really a moral issue, and the question is, Are we going to do it? We keep putting it off. We keep talking about…”

“This is really a moral issue, and the question is, Are we going to do it? We keep putting it off. We keep talking about it. We keep saying, let's have a commission, let's do a resolution, let's study it some more, let's make the process work perfectly. I spent most of the afternoon in the Finance Committee trying to work out a resolution on this. Frankly, at the end, there was some hope. But there was also some discussion about what happens if we don't get to vote on prescription drugs. There was a discussion of that. I don't want to see that happen. This will probably be our only vote on prescription drugs in this entire session. It is a bipartisan bill. I have made some compromises. Others have made compromises. It is a solid bill. It is probably the only vote we will have on it. It is a moral issue, not a political issue, a moral issue that seniors don't have prescription drugs under Medicare. They ought to. John Breaux is right: Prescription drugs are like a bed in a hospital in 1965; now we are going to modernize it, it is available for all. It is an amendment we should pass.”