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I strongly support adding a meaningful, voluntary, comprehensive prescription drug benefit to Medicare. When Medicare was first created in 1965, prescriptions drugs were a very small part of health care. But today, prescription drugs are a critical part of our nation’s health care system and help people live longer, healthier lives.

For years now, too many elderly and disabled Americans have been forced to choose between paying for food or rent, or buying the prescription drugs they need. That is why I have consistently voted during the past several years to add a real drug benefit to the Medicare program. Unfortunately, I could not support the Medicare bill that passed and was signed into law by the President because I believe it falls far short of what seniors have asked for - and even does harm to the Medicare program.

First, this bill turns Medicare into a government subsidy program for private insurance companies. Instead of simply adding drug coverage to the current guaranteed benefit under Medicare, the bill gives billions to insurance companies to entice them to serve Medicare beneficiaries. With these subsidies, insurance companies will attract healthier and wealthier Medicare beneficiaries - leaving poorer, sicker beneficiaries in traditional Medicare facing higher costs. This will lead down a path where seniors will be forced to choose between paying more to stay in Medicare, or joining a private plan and losing their ability to choose their own doctor or hospital.

In addition, under this law, seniors could be forced into a different plan, pay different premiums, and have different medicines covered from year to year. In Wisconsin, we’ve already seen the Medicare+Choice program - which also relies on private plans - leave the State, cut benefits and charge higher copayments every year. This model only guarantees a mountain of paperwork and worries for seniors.

Second, our seniors and taxpayers deserve a Medicare prescription drug benefit that gets the best prices for their medication. Unfortunately, this bill actually prohibits the Federal government from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices. Third, the drug benefit itself is far less generous than seniors expect and deserve -- and for many seniors, it will do more harm than good. Many seniors will still be responsible for most of their drug costs.

I am also very concerned that this bill will harm many seniors who already have significant drug coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 2.7 million seniors who already have drug coverage through a former employer could lose it, including as many as 60,000 in Wisconsin. In addition, while there is additional help for some low-income beneficiaries, millions of poorer seniors will be worse off because of this bill.

I know there are some who say we could not afford to wait for a perfect bill. But I believe that this bill is not just far from perfect - it will actually do harm. We could have done tremendous good with this bill; it could have brought the price of drugs down through bulk purchasing, greater use of generic drugs, and reimportation of less expensive drugs from Canada. Instead, this new law provides a complicated and skimpy drug benefit, huge subsidies to drug and insurance companies, and a sea change in the Medicare program.

This is not the kind of plan seniors have been asking for or have a right to expect, and I will continue to work to provide a real prescription drug benefit through Medicare.