Winthrop resident Lorraine White wrote to tell me that she and her husband spend about $400 each month on vital prescription drugs. They live on a limited income and have had to draw down their savings to make ends meet. They wonder what they are going to do when their savings are depleted. More and more, I am hearing disturbing accounts of older Americans who are running up huge high-interest credit card bills in order to buy medicine they could not otherwise afford. Even more alarming are the accounts of patients who are skipping doses to stretch out their prescriptions or are forced to choose between paying the bills or buying the pills that keep them healthy.
I will never forget an elderly woman coming up to me in the grocery store in Bangor and saying to me she was only able to afford half the number of pills her doctor had prescribed because otherwise she would not be able to buy the food she needed. No senior in our country should have to face those kinds of choices.
It is therefore critical we bring Medicare into line with most private sector insurance plans and expand the program to include coverage for prescription drugs. I am pleased that Congress was able to pass a landmark Medicare prescription drug bill. While not perfect, this legislation makes prescription drug coverage a permanent part of the Medicare program, and it provides a benefit that will be available to all seniors and disabled individuals on Medicare, regardless of where they live. As a result, drug costs for couples like the Whites would be cut by more than half, and if they qualify for low-income subsidies, the savings would be even greater. Furthermore, the benefit is entirely voluntary: no senior has to take this additional benefit if his or her current prescription coverage is sufficient.
The bill's impacts are far-reaching and will provide direct help to people throughout Maine. While it unfortunately will take time for this new benefit to come online, there is still immediate help in this bill for our seniors. Starting next year, seniors will receive discount cards that will save 15 to 25 percent on each prescription drug purchase. Moreover, low-income beneficiaries will receive a $600 credit on that card, in both 2004 and 2005, that they can apply to the purchase of their drugs. This subsidy will give our most vulnerable seniors immediate assistance in purchasing drugs that they otherwise might not be able to afford.
Beginning in 2006, all seniors will be eligible to get both up-front and catastrophic protection for an average premium of $35 a month. Moreover, low-income seniors, those who are most burdened with the high cost of prescription drugs, will receive generous subsidies and get additional protections. This bill will also make prescription drugs more affordable for all consumers by closing loopholes in our patent laws that some of the large brand name pharmaceutical companies have exploited in order to delay consumers' access to lower priced generic drugs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these provisions, which I authored, will help to reduce our nation's drug costs by some $60 billion over the next decade.
Moreover, the bill includes important provisions to bring the Medicare program up-to-date. For example, Medicare beneficiaries will now have access to new benefits to help in the early diagnosis and treatment of illness and disease, which will help millions of beneficiaries cope with diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and other conditions. When beneficiaries initially enroll in Medicare, they will receive a "Welcome to Medicare" physical examination. The examination will also include education, counseling, and referrals to preventive services already covered by Medicare.
The bill also takes major steps to make Medicare payments more equitable. Medicare's reimbursement systems have historically tended to favor large urban areas and failed to take into account the special needs of rural states. In fact, Maine's low reimbursement rates are the ironic result of the state's long history of providing high-quality, cost-effective care. The final version of the bill, fortunately, tracks legislation I introduced earlier this year very closely and contains significant steps to strengthen the health care safety net by increasing Medicare payments to physicians and hospitals in rural states. These provisions will increase Medicare payments to physicians in Maine by an estimated $7 million a year and payments to Maine's rural hospitals by more than $125 million in the next 10 years.
Over the years, I have also worked very hard to support home health care, and I am pleased that this legislation restores the enhanced reimbursement for Medicare home health payments that is vital to sustaining home health care in rural areas. Many of our elderly citizens prefer to receive the health care they need in the privacy and security of their own home, but Medicare reimbursement rates, particularly in rural areas, have been so lacking that home health care has been jeopardized. While I believe this "add-on" could have been more substantial, its extension nonetheless marks a major step in the right direction.
The bill has been the subject of intense debate. The version originally passed by the House of Representatives would have called for direct competition between private plans and traditional Medicare. I have serious concerns about any such proposals, which could be particularly problematic in a rural state like Maine where seniors are not likely to have a host of insurance companies competing for their business. While I still have reservations about the final bill, the agreement is markedly different from the original House proposal. The final version includes only a limited pilot project which would not begin until the year 2010 and which would provide significant protections for seniors who remain in Medicare.
This bill represents the last real hope of getting an affordable Medicare prescription drug benefit anytime soon. Seniors have already waited too long for this benefit. I agree with the many groups, like the AARP, who have endorsed this legislation – the bill is imperfect, but the quest for perfection should not distract us from doing what is good and what is needed, now. Millions of older Americans and their families will be helped by this legislation, and millions more will be helped in the future.