July 30,2002

Grassley on the Graham Amendment on Prescription Drugs


I rise to oppose the amendment before us. For the third time in as many weeks, a mostlypartisan Democrat prescription drug bill is about to fail on this floor. And beyond failing here,today’s amendment fails seniors and taxpayers as well. It fails seniors because it fails to cover mostof them. From what we know of the proposal – and we’re only this afternoon getting the details –most middle income seniors will get nothing, nothing at all, when it comes to prescription drugcoverage. It fails taxpayers because it does so at an extremely high cost.

My friends on the other side of the aisle have accomplished quite a feat – they’ve managedto write a Medicare prescription drug proposal that does less with more money.

Their proposal provides generous coverage to beneficiaries below 200% of poverty. There’snothing wrong with that. I agree that scarce resources should be used wisely by Congress to targetmoney where it’s needed the most.

However, their proposal provides almost no assistance to Medicare beneficiaries whoseincomes exceed $18,952 a year.

A senior at 201% of poverty will receive no meaningful coverage under the Graham proposaluntil she has spent 17% of her income on drugs. A married couple at 201% of poverty will spend25% of their annual income on drugs before both gain catastrophic coverage protection.To make matters worse, 3/4 of seniors above 200% of poverty have other prescription drugcoverage. Since these plans cover some drug expenses, and because the Graham plan does not havea basic benefit, these folks will receive no help even if they have total drug expenses over $3,300.A typical senior above 200% of poverty will receive approximately $6 of assistance everymonth toward their prescription drug expenses.

Now, the Congressional Budget Office has given Graham a preliminary cost estimate of$389.5 billion. Keep in mind, though, that CBO did not have legislative language to review at thetime they completed their cost estimate.

So, depending on what legislative language is included in the Graham proposal – it could costmore than $400 billion.

The Tripartisan bill with an official CBO cost estimate of $370 billion provides a solidbenefit for all Medicare beneficiaries. Lower-income enrollees are provided with additionalprotections, which, as I said before, is appropriate.

What the Tripartisan bill has that Graham doesn’t is a significant drug benefit for every singleMedicare enrollee. Under our 21st Century Medicare Act, enrollees will save on average 50% offtheir drug bills. And, lower-income enrollees will see a 95% savings in their drug bills. The Grahambill fails these people. It fails them badly.

Indeed, these failures amount to a massive failure for this body. Under the Senate leadership,Democrats and Democrats alone have tried to write partisan legislation on the Senate floor time andtime again this summer. Well, Mr. President, that’s gotten us nowhere. It’s led to chaos, topartisanship and, as I said just a minute ago, to failure.

So, where are we now? It looks like we’re ready for another mostly partisan vote on a prettymuch partisan bill. Another vote that will fail to get 60 votes, and will fail to give seniors the helpthey need. We could have been somewhere far different from this. The House passed a bill. Wecould have been in conference with the House at this point. The President wants a bill. We couldhave even been in the Rose Garden.

The Majority Leader says he wants a bill, but what’s taken place here over the last threeweeks means he really wants something else: an issue. Had regular order been followed, had theFinance Committee been given the right to work its bipartisan will, we could have had far more thanjust an issue.

The sponsors of the Tripartisan bill, the only bipartisan bill in all of Washington to providecomprehsive, universal coverage at a cost that’s far lower than the amendment before us now, wereready and willing to talk to anyone about compromises. We still are.

But we were denied the right to a markup in the Finance Committee. I believe that if it hadbeen given the chance to work its will, the Finance Committee would have reported out a bipartisanproposal, based on the Tripartisan 21st Century Medicare Act we introduced earlier this month.I’ve said it before, everyone in this chamber knows that for anything of this magnitude topass – and adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare is the single greatest entitlement expansionin history -- it needs to get 60 votes.

And everyone in this chamber knows that the only way to get 60 votes is to have bipartisansupport. The proper place to find bipartisan support is in the Finance Committee, not on the Senatefloor.

I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of a letter from various patient groups opposingthis legislation.