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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
April 17, 2002 Wednesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 258 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HEADLINE: TRANSIT SYSTEM BENEFITS
TESTIMONY-BY: MARK FOLEY,, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE
AFFILIATION: STATE OF FLORIDA
BODY: Opening Statement of
Mark Foley, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Florida
Testimony Before
the House Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on Integrating
Prescription Drugs into Medicare
April 17, 2002
I want to thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this very important hearing.
For years,
thousands of seniors have gone without any form of prescription drug benefit. In
some cases, it can cost up to $
10,000 per month for the
numerous types of drugs that a beneficiary may take. For those on a fixed
income, this amount can mean the difference between medicine and food.
When Medicare was developed in 1965 it was designed to help seniors who
were without health insurance. At the time, there were far fewer prescription
drugs on the market and therefore there was not a need for a prescription drug
benefit. However, times have changed and there are dozens of new prescription
drugs being developed every year.
I strongly believe that, as part of
our efforts to help the millions of Medicare beneficiaries who are currently
suffering, we must implement a
Medicare prescription drug
discount card bill as soon as possible. This program, which will lead to a
larger drug benefit, can be implemented more quickly than the full benefit and
in the interim save seniors between 15 to 40 percent on drugs.
Again,
Mr. Chairman, I commend you and Chairman Johnson for your outstanding work on
this issue and I look forward to working with you to provide long overdue and
critically needed help to our seniors.
LOAD-DATE: April 18, 2002