Grassley Seeks Permanent Prescription Drug Benefit for Iowa Seniors

Grassley Seeks Permanent Prescription Drug Benefit for Iowa Seniors

? Senators failed to give filibuster-proof support to competing Medicare prescription drug plans in back to back roll-call votes this afternoon.

One of the proposals was sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley. His bill represented the only Medicare drug benefit plan with support across political party lines. The Grassley bill is a comprehensive measure that would provide a permanent prescription drug benefit for the nation's seniors, while also improving the Medicare program with catastrophic protection and free preventive care. Grassley is the top Republican on the Senate committee responsible for all Medicare legislation.

The competing plan, sponsored by Sens. Ted Kennedy and Bob Graham, provided only a temporary prescription drug benefit and limited the kind of brand name drugs that would be available to Medicare beneficiaries.

Grassley made the following statement about today's Senate vote.

The good news is that 97 members of the Senate voted today for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. We had a debate over what some people consider two competing drug bills. There's no competition in my mind. The tri-partisan bill is better. It's permanent, dependable, cost-efficient, sustainable, and gives the most access to prescription drugs, name brand and all.

I keep hearing the Graham plan offers more generous benefits than the tri-partisan bill. Well, there's nothing generous about a plan that denies coverage of most brand name drugs. There's nothing generous about a plan that evaporates in eight years. Seniors won't sunset in 2010. Why should a drug benefit?

The question from my perspective as a farmer is , which would you rather have, a bushel of corn now, or a corn field that'll feed you indefinitely? False hope of a good drug benefit is worse than no benefit. The Graham bill offers false hope. The tri-partisan bill offers a good drug benefit.

I also keep hearing the tri-partisan bill described as the Senate Republican bill. Senator Breaux is standing here. He's not a Republican. Senator Jeffords is here. He's most definitely not a Republican. So I'd like to re-frame the debate. It's not Republicans versus Democrats. It's those who want a good benefit versus those who want a campaign issue.

The next several days will test the mettle of these groups. We'll see who really wants a good prescription drug benefit and who wants a campaign issue. I'm willing to sit down with those who oppose the tri-partisan bill and listen to any ideas on how to improve it. I'm not willing to gut the tri-partisan bill in favor of another approach that simply won't work.

I want to deliver a drug benefit. I refuse to deliver false hope.