Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of this legislation. Welfare reform has been simply an extraordinary success. Rarely has this United States Congress taken an action that has meant so much in people's lives, that has produced so much good in people's lives. Under our welfare bill today, we have $51 billion available for services to families. We used to have under the old program $5 billion. That is because we kept the money constant while the number of cases has dropped by half, so all that money is there for services. Now it is needed.

We have fought hard to keep that money flat. Why? Because we not only want the money to pay day care while you are preparing for work, but as you make that transition.

But there are some other statistics that bespeak the extraordinary human success of welfare reform. Black poverty among children living with one parent is at its lowest levels historically. That means there are fewer black children living with single parents in poverty than has happened in decades. I am proud of that. What it tells us is that black women once given the opportunity for training and work are succeeding and they are doing better and their children are doing better.

I support this extension. I am pleased with its parts, particularly the day care dollars, but I do wish that the Senate had taken up the reauthorization that we passed here on the House floor because it goes further. It begins looking at careers. How do we help women, primarily women, (although there are some men who are single parents and on welfare), how do we help those folks who are trapped in that situation as a result of a series of problems, not only think about how to go to work and how to meet the emotional needs of their children but how to go to work on the first rung of a career ladder. Then every year you move up, every year your salary progresses, every year you learn more, do more, take responsibility and get a greater reward in the form of a higher salary. So those, primarily women, can be not only role models for their children but successful economic and emotional parents.

In the new bill that passed this House, we drove the work requirement up from 20 to 24 hours a week. By doing that, we made clear that you needed to work 3 full-time days, but you were accountable for a 40- hour-a-week plan. We counted drug treatment as work under that plan. We counted mental health counseling as work under that plan. States could even count taking care of your children after school as work under that plan because each plan could be individualized.

But the sum and substance of it was that it structured that transition off welfare so that you could go to school 2 days a week, counting that as work, finishing up your degree while you are working 3 days a week, and you could create for yourself truly any future you wanted because mental health, drug treatment, those kinds of problems, if you are addressing them aggressively, could be counted as work, which they are; and education combined with work could be also counted.

We have a next step to take; and if the other body will work on reauthorization, we can move forward. But please vote ``yes'' on this extension today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time.

This is plain and simple a jobs bill. If American multinational companies are not competitive, we lose jobs all across this country, in the millions and millions of small businesses that produce parts and products that go abroad, and furthermore, if our multinationals are not strong, we do not produce jobs in America for this reason.

A 10-year study of our multinationals showed that they produced 2.8 million jobs abroad over the last 10 years, but those same parent companies produced 5.5 million new jobs right here in America. Being able to compete internationally is what creates jobs here at home. And it is not just those who export that have to be able to compete internationally; it is everyone because international competition is right down the street at Wal-Mart. So if we are not competitive, we lose jobs.

This bill reforms the structure under which we tax international earnings so we are competitive. That is all it does. We have to repeal one section of our law, so we feed that money back in to level the playing field for our companies so that they can continue to grow more jobs in America than they do abroad and so that they can continue to buy product from the millions of small businesses all across America that supply the goods that go abroad and make us competitive.

This is a jobs bill, and do not forget it for one minute. If we do not pass it, we lose jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the conclusion of an outstanding educator's career in the State of Connecticut. With the retirement of William Oros, Connecticut is losing a respected and dedicated educator who has committed more than three decades of his life to the enlightenment of Connecticut's youth.

Over 36 years of service to Connecticut education, Mr. Oros has left an everlasting impression on his students. From his direct contact with the youth of Connecticut's Northwest Corner as a science and math teacher in Cornwall, to his leadership as Supervising Principal at the Cornwall Consolidated Elementary School, Mr. Oros has deeply affected the lives of each of his pupils. His ability to influence the lives of young students has been unparalleled.

Moreover, Mr. Oros has achieved undying respect from his students and peers alike. Most recently, as Assistant Superintendent of Schools for the New Fairfield School District, Mr. Oros has worked with staff to develop in-service training programs and professional development for educators, as well as serving as a resource of support and assistance for individuals who serve in all areas of education. Mr. Oros' exemplary leadership throughout his extended career is an example for all to follow, not just in the field of education, but for anyone concerned with the future of our state and Nation.

The enthusiasm and dedication Mr. Oros displays towards the educating of the youth in Connecticut has been both commendable and contagious. It is imperative for individuals such as he to nurture the growth of tommorow's leaders. I wish Mr. Oros the best towards a happy and healthy retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with pride and pleasure to recognize this June 1 as the first time in history that the seniors of America have had the opportunity to purchase a Medicare drug discount card as the first step, but only the first step, in reducing the cost of their prescription drugs.

My colleagues have heard a lot here tonight. We have heard some very sharp things from the speaker who just preceded me. But listen to this: this is a widow in my hometown of New Britain who takes Zithromax; and because of this discount card at a local pharmacy in New Britain, instead of paying $46.50 for her Zithromax, she will now pay $39.44. She takes Nystatin. Instead of paying $35 for Nystatin, she will now pay $15 for Nystatin. And so it goes. One of the other drugs she takes costs $40 and now will cost $11.50.

Mr. Speaker, this widow for whom every dollar is precious will save $730 on her prescription drugs every year, including this year. Now, that may not be a lot to my colleagues, but for someone spending $2,000 on drugs a year, a little over $2,000 on drugs a year, that is a lot. That is 29 percent, almost 30 percent, of her drug costs.

So this is a good day for seniors, and I and my colleagues are going to talk about a lot of the things we have been told tonight about this prescription drug program. But we are here to say, you be the judge. We are here to say, do not let nay-sayers, do not let others rob you of the hundreds of dollars of savings on the prescription drugs on which your health and well-being depend. You be the judge. You find out the facts. You be the judge. It is real simple.

But to start off tonight, let me turn to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), a very good friend of mine on the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his comments. It is absolutely true that this was the first bill ever passed by the House that provided a discount card. Every other bill passed or proposed, whether by the Republicans or a bipartisan group or the Democrats, waited 2 years to provide any senior with any benefit. That was just too long. And while my colleague from the other side who spoke just before we took our time said some seniors will not benefit at all, he pointed to those seniors who have very good employer-provided coverage. That is about 30 percent of seniors. What he did not say was that no low-income senior, now that we are at June 1, will ever again pay more than $5 for a drug, a prescription drug. All low-income seniors in America, no more than $5 for a generic; and much less than that that many will pay, $1 per prescription.

Now, that matters to our seniors, I say to my colleagues. That is important in their lives, and I am proud that we have brought that to them.

I am very proud to have another colleague of mine from the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), join us as we talk about this prescription drug discount card now available to our seniors across America on this day, June 1.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth). I must say that some of the statements made by my colleagues from the other side in preceding times do need to be answered.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that it is disconcerting and unfortunate, frankly, that Members will get up and say things that are so distantly related to the bill. For instance, someone said, why do not we have a prescription drug benefit that is part of traditional Medicare? That is what we should have passed.

Folks, that is what we did pass. The bill we passed made prescription drugs a benefit under Medicare. Just like part B is a benefit under Medicare through which you get access to doctors' care in their office, to the costs of tests and things like that, MRIs, all those things, part D will give you access to prescription drugs. It is a part of Medicare. The discount card is a part of the prescription drug benefit. It is a part of Medicare.

I appreciate that the gentleman who used that phrase did not vote for the bill, but that does not excuse misleading the public about it. If Jeanne had not been a self-starter, my widow friend in New Britain, if she had not been so thoughtful, she would not now be able to pay $11.50 for a drug she used to pay $40 for.

Let me just show you here a minute how easy this is. Because this word ``confusion,'' ``confusion,'' ``this is so hard, our seniors will not be able to follow, they will not be able to understand,'' you see how easy it is.

First of all, write down your zip code. Very important. Write down your zip code. Because Medicare is going to tell you the price of your drugs at various pharmacies in your area, and they can decide that through using your zip code. If you want to know about two zip code areas because you live near a border, fine, use two zip code areas. But have your zip code written down so you will be ready to say it accurately when the question is asked.

Then write down your medications. Write down the name of each drug you are taking. Write down the dose. Because you do not want to find out the price for the right drug but the wrong dose. You want to find out the discount price for the right drug, the right dose, taken so many times a day.

So get all your facts laid out: The names of all the drugs you take and the dosage of those drugs, and the cost that you pay, just so you know. When you have that information, your drugs, the dose, the cost, and your zip code, then, easy as pie, call 1-800-MEDICARE. We are going to put that back up in a minute. Call 1-800-MEDICARE; and one of the now 4,000 operators who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and, of course, remember to call in the evening, call in the early morning so you will not have to wait, call on the weekend you will not have to wait. Call Monday or Tuesday, the wait will be longer. You know that from many sales activities you have done throughout your life. Call 1-800-MEDICARE.

Or go have your daughter your son or your grandchild, if you do not feel comfortable doing it. Go to the computer and go into www.Medicare.gov. So it is easy to get to a person or to a program in the computer that will then ask you for the information I have told you about, your zip code, the names of every one of your drugs, the dosage, and then for your information also what you pay per drug. And then you should have your income. That is the next bit of information you need to have. Because by telling the operator your income that operator will know whether or not you are one of the people that qualify for this $600 credit.

Low-income seniors that do not have any readily available cash have a hard time just buying those antibiotics they may desperately need to get over an illness. We understand that. So this discount card is not just a discount card. It is a $600 cash benefit for those who need it, those below 100 percent of poverty income; and then using that cash credit and the discount, you see, they will pay a lower price and stretch out that $600 available to them.

So as one of the columnists that I read said, a low-income senior who has an income less than $12,500 a year for a single person or for less than 16,000, almost 17,000 for a married couple, they should not walk to the discount card. They should run to get this discount card, because they will pay no more than $1 for generics or up to $5 for prescription drugs, an extraordinary benefit for them.

Finally, look for this label on the discount card: Medicare approved. That is why it is part of Medicare, because it has gone through the process of being approved by the government and being, consequently, if it does not perform fairly, if it says it is going to charge you one thing and it charges you a lot more, the government is there enforcing the rules, penalizing them and forcing them to comply what it promised to you.

There is a lot more to this program, but I did want to run through how easy it is to sign up, how easy it is to figure out which card is for you, but I will not go into any further details because I want to hear from my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), who is also a physician, who therefore has a very tangible and real understanding of the terrible hardships that patients, who cannot afford the drugs they need, face in our communities and what an important first step, only a first step, this discount card will be.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. When you call up that 1-800-Medicare number and you tell them your zip code, your income and the drugs you take, they send you a printout. It has the pharmacy's name on it and the address and another pharmacy and that address right near you and another pharmacy and that address and the price that each of those pharmacies charges for each of the drugs that you take.

Now, then you can go on and you can get more. But you can tell them my favorite pharmacy is this. I want to know which card gives me the lowest price at my favorite pharmacy, and they will tell you that. Or you can say, I want to know where the lowest price is in all the surrounding towns; and they will tell you that.

So never have we brought the service of technology to our seniors as we have in this program, not just in advertising it but in having people there to assist seniors in deciding what card is best for them. And, of course, it is true, if you are in a program where your employer pays all of your drug costs, you will not need a discount card, but that is a very small percentage of our retired seniors. And if you are very, very poor, on Medicaid and the taxpayers are paying all of your drug costs, that is true, you will not benefit from a prescription drug discount card, although your State will. Your State will save some money, and that will help them carry the burden of other programs.

So, ironically, if you are on Medicaid, you will not feel the benefit. But in my State that has had to kill some Medicaid benefits, they are going to use the money we save them on Medicaid to strengthen another part of the Medicaid benefit for other Medicaid groups. So it is a good thing for everybody.

Now, just before we go on to some of my colleagues, I do want to say one other thing. First of all, year after year, we have failed in the House and Senate to be able to pass a bill. Year after year, seniors have waited. Year after year, seniors have begun to doubt whether we were as good as our word, whether we did care. This was the third time the House passed the bill. The first year the Senate passed the bill; the first session the Senate passed the bill. But together now we have a bill.

In the Senate, it was an extremely bipartisan vote. In the House, it was less bipartisan because of the nature of the House. But, in the end, it delivers to seniors a generous drug benefit that will result in half of America's retired seniors having no more than $1 for generic costs and $5 for brand name costs all across America. That is when the full program is implemented, the discount and the subsidy. So this is a giant step forward.

One of the gentlemen earlier talked about price, how the cards do change its price. Now, yes, it can; and we wanted them to. It is too bad really that we do not have more Members stop and remember their basic economics. There is not a senior out there that does not watch the sales. There is not a senior out there that does not go out and buy things regularly when they are on sale at whatever grocery store they are cheapest. And we know that, so we put all the discount cards out, and look what happened.

The first week they could advertise themselves. See these two cards had very high prices. For the bundle of 10 drugs that one of my colleagues from

the other side defined, they were going to charge a total of $1,300 for just those 10 drugs. Well, they began to see, you see, what the other cards were going to charge; and they figured out, they figured out that even though it cost them a million dollars probably to put that card out there, they were not going to get any customers and they would lose all the money then put into developing their cards. They knew that a customer would be more likely to choose a card that was going to cost them only $930 for the same group of drugs that this card was going to charge $1,300.

There is not a senior I know that does not get it. $930 is a lot less than $1,300. You are going to sign up for this card. You are not going to sign up for these.

So what happened? Well, let us see. It only took one week, one week. Look what happened. Those cards brought their prices down to just about the same as the others. And each week there was change.

In other words, if you put a new product on the market, it costs you money. You invest in that product. And if you do not get customers to buy your product, I do not care whether it is drug card or an automobile or new shoes, you lose because nobody is buying your product. So if you want people to buy your discount cards, you better be sure you drive those discount prices low, and that is what we have been seeing happening. And I am proud of it, and we are going to see it happening more and more because this is the first time in history that prices have been out there on the Internet for everybody to see. Before that, you had to go store by store and then only you knew. Now everybody knows.

Let us turn now to my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), another physician in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also a physician, for joining us this evening; and I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), my colleague, this evening as we move toward the end of our Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I have served in Congress a long time; and when there is a real problem in the lives of the people you represent, I believe your job is to solve it. I believe your job is to take action, to do something; and I know that this is the most important health care bill we have passed for seniors since Medicare was founded.

It not only offers them prescription drugs. As I showed you earlier, it is absolutely voluntary. It is simple. You just use your ZIP code. You give us the pharmacist you like the best. You give us the names of your drugs, and we will tell you how much money you can save. It is not for everyone, if people already have very good coverage through their employers, but particularly important to those seniors who have no prescription drug coverage. It is real savings in their lives, and that is important to me.

When the whole bill goes into effect, we will pay 75 percent of the costs of their drugs, a gigantic step forward. Just as we pay 80 percent of the cost of their visits to the doctor, we will pay 75 percent of the cost of their drugs. In the bill I wrote, it was 80 percent. We will get it up to 80 percent, but you have to act. You have to do something, and all these nay-sayers who voted against doing anything one more year, this would have been the fourth year we would have done nothing. What a record. All those nay-sayers are now telling you do not bother, do not bother.

Listen, take a minute, bother, call 1-800-MEDICARE. Do what Jean did and find out that you can save $30 on one drug she has to buy every month, $20 on another drug. It all adds up to hundreds of dollars. That, in my estimation, is a good thing. That helps our seniors.

I am proud of the bill we passed because it brings prescription drugs to seniors; but you know what else, not a senior I know does not have chronic illnesses. Twenty percent of our seniors have five or more chronic illnesses. Medicare does not pay for chronic illness care. The rest of the world knows about it.

Many, many employer-provided plans do a lot more for people with diabetes or heart conditions. Do you understand that in this prescription drug and Medicare reform bill, for the first time we are going to provide chronic disease management for our seniors? We are going to give them the kind of state-of-the-art support that means that people with chronic disease do not have to end up in the hospital, do not have to end up on dialysis if they have diabetes, do not have to fear going to the emergency rooms. I mean, it is going to be a revolution. It is bringing preventive health care right to those who have chronic disease and are going to suffer the most serious health consequences.

So this is about prescription drugs. This is about a discount card today, about a full prescription drug card subsidy in 2006 and about Medicare offering state-of-the-art care to people with chronic illnesses in a way it never has.

I am proud to have helped write this bill. I am proud that I was the only woman on the conference committee, because I think that is important.

Women and men both need to be present to make our laws, and do not any one of the young people watching tonight forget that.

But this is a big step forward, and do not let naysayers rob you of the very considerable savings this discount card could bring to you. And, remember, you be the judge of your interests. You alone can make that judgment. We here in Medicare have made it very easy, and I urge you to take advantage of the Medicare prescription drug discount card, which starts today, June 1.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4359. This is about children. It is about families. I think back to when my husband and I raised our children and the tremendous economic pressure on us. I look at that pressure on my children and their husbands and it is enormous. We paid $28,000 for our house. That is not what the kids are out there facing. We paid $2,000 for a car. The kids are having to make payments on houses that are worth more than the cars we bought and the houses we bought.

It is tough to raise a family today. It is very hard to meet the expenses of raising children in a stable, secure environment, saving for their educations and saving for your retirement which is also part of their security. So this is not about digging a hole. This is about setting priorities.

One of my most deeply held priorities is to reshape public policy so that it strengthens families and increases the economic and emotional security of our children. Indeed, one of the things I like about this bill is that it adopts the definition of the middle class that was encompassed in a bill the Democrats offered just 2 weeks ago as part of their effort to shelter more middle-class families from the impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax. I thought that was a good definition. We were impressed by it.

It does expand the definition of the middle class, and this bill reflects that. But you cannot have a tax policy that one year gives a family $1,000 worth of child credit, the next year $700, the next year $500. It is erratic. They have to be able to plan. They have to be able to think through how will we meet the needs of our family.

Making this particular tax credit permanent is important to building a

solid, strong support system under our families. And I rise in strong and proud support of H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act.

Now, why do I say we are not digging a hole for our children in the budget sense? First of all, I have been here a long time, and I am one of the ones that fought hard to balance the budget in 1997. I was here when we had to dig out of long years of debt. In fact, when we balanced the budget in 1997, it was the first time in 40 years or the first time in 2 generations and we did it right here in this Chamber by disciplined spending. And the result was that as the economy got going, we had a surplus that required us to add just tax policies because we were taking, the estimates were trillions, more out of people's pockets than we needed to fund government services. So we did make changes in tax policy to make the code fairer and more family friendly.

This was one of the most constructive bills, and I am willing to take the responsibility to make this tax credit permanent, and in the future to adjust defense and other spending as we work our way out of Iraq and address priority domestic needs. That is what we did last time. To pass this year's budget, which is a freeze budget on spending, it is going to be tough for us because we do need to increase the funding for public education and to do that, we will have to cut spending in other areas. But I am willing to take responsibility to pass tough budgets year after year, as we will have to, to get to balance. I am willing to do that again and again and to realistically adjust the defense budget as our responsibilities in Iraq decline in the context of new revenues from an expanding economy. And through those mechanisms, to balance the budget.

Again, we showed the grit to do it before the war and a recession. Then had no choice but to allow imbalance. In the future we will have the grit to do it again. But we should not question that grit and fail to fulfill this obligation today, that obligation being to create a predictable, stabilizing tax policy around our young families.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the 100th birthday of Mrs. Helen Snell Cheel of Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ. Mrs. Cheel is the daughter of the late Honorable Bertrand H. Snell, minority leader of the House of Representatives from 1931-1938 and Congressman for 24 years from the 31st District of New York. Mrs. Cheel is also the great aunt of my Connecticut staff member, Elizabeth J. Buell.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Cheel is a remarkable, independent woman. Her friendships, keen intellect, sense of humor, infectious laugh, unwavering generosity and ability to live in the present have served her well for 100 years. At a time when few women attended college, Mrs. Cheel earned a B.S. in Music Education from Columbia University. She married the late Harold W. Cheel, an engineer, successful architect and developer of Cheelcroft in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Cheel has been recognized on many occasions for her lifelong philanthropic endeavors and her community service. She has been a standard-bearer, true friend and proud supporter of Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, the Emma Willard School in Troy, NY, and the Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ. She has served on the boards of many local and regional organizations and institutions. I wish to recognize Mrs. Cheel and congratulate her on her 100th birthday.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me time to speak on what I consider to be a very important bill.

I rise in support of H.R. 4227 and commend my colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons), for introducing this legislation.

This bill is simply about keeping promises, about keeping the promise made to the middle-class taxpayers that we would provide child credits to reduce the taxes on our young families, that we would eliminate the marriage penalty, and that we would expand the 10 percent bracket so that those low earners in America would not be burdened with tax liabilities.

Unfortunately, unless we pass this legislation, we will renege on that promise of lower taxes and effectively increase the taxes of 11 million taxpayers by on average $1,520. I can tell you, that is a lot of money to families in our country. We cut their taxes; and we need to remain loyal to that policy that supports families, recognizes the circumstances of low-income individuals and families in the 10 percent bracket, and eliminates the gross unfairness of the current marriage penalty in our code.

So I rise in strong support of the legislation. It is temporary. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the administration on a permanent solution, but passage of this legislation is imperative.

I also strongly oppose the substitute. First of all, it is wrong to fund a 1-year provision with a permanent increase in taxes. It is also wrong to ``clarify current law'' by muddying it. Current law

has a body of case law behind it which has helped to define the complex issues and eliminate uncertainty.

Now, the current law could be improved upon. Our Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Gregory Jenner, has recommended, and the Treasury has strongly recommended, that we increase disclosure, that we require more disclosure, and that by doing so, we could stop tax shelter transactions that were abusive. So we need to move to increase disclosure.

But to add instead a new, complicated doctrine of economic substance will cause the kind of confusion that retards investment. People will be uncertain. This is a very complicated issue. They will not know what the government is going to do. They will slow down investment, killing jobs.

When our recovery is soft, it is dumb to do something that will cost jobs now and cost considerable jobs over the next few years. The Heritage Foundation has just come forward with an analysis that says this would kill 3,000 jobs the first year and 15,000 jobs over 5 years. Remember, many of our manufacturers pay taxes and would be affected by this, just at the time when they are getting back on their feet.

So what you do not need in the Tax Code is uncertainty. We have a problem in the Tax Code. We need to deal with it. A 1-year extension is the right way to go at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and oppose the substitute.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the basketball capital of the nation, Storrs CT home of the University of Connecticut Huskies. For the first time in NCAA history, one school has brought home both the Men's and Women's Division I Basketball titles in the same year.

I would like to offer special congratulations to Head Coaches Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma. This is Coach Calhoun's second National Championship. For Coach Auriemma, this is his third consecutive championship and fifth overall. Both men are outstanding coaches who exemplify leadership and commitment to our young people.

Mr. Speaker, this is an extraordinary group of young men and women. We could spend hours telling you about each one of these marvelous student athletes. Since we don't have that much time, I want to take a moment to tell you a little about All Americans Emeka Okafor and Diana Taurasi.

Emeka Okafor the Co-National Player of the Year, is not only a stellar shot blocker, he is graduating from UCONN as a Junior with his degree in Finance and carries a 3.8 GPA. Earlier this year he was named Kodak Academic Player of the Year. Emeka is a genuine role model for our children.

Diana Taurasi was recently named the national women's Player of the Year and the Final Four Most Outstanding Player. As a senior at UCONN, she led the Huskies to three consecutive national titles--and finished her college career with a team-high 17 points in the championship game.

Coach Auriemma told his team before the game that in the early 90's the team played in its first championship game before a crowd of roughly 1,500 people. On April 6th the Huskies defeated the University of Tennessee Volunteers in front of a crowd of over 15,000. Mr. Speaker I think its safe to say that Title IX is alive and doing well in Storrs Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you and all of our colleagues to join me in honoring these two tremendous teams.

Mr. Speaker, since Medicare was founded, medicine has changed and seniors have changed. We all know how medicine has changed, MRIs, open heart surgery, all the dramatic procedures, all the new diagnostic tests; and Medicare has a cumbersome though slow way of accommodating its system to be able to deliver modern medicine.

More importantly, seniors have changed. They are living longer. They are living with chronic diseases. And Medicare has not accommodated at all to that dramatic change in our seniors' lives.

So I was delighted this week to announce with Secretary Tommy Thompson the implementation of those provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act which will for the first time enable Medicare to deliver to our seniors modern medical care to better support those with chronic illnesses.

Twenty percent of our seniors have five or more chronic illnesses. They use two thirds of the Medicare dollars, and we have not been able to deliver what modern medical science knows about how to prevent the progress of chronic illness. We started today through the Medicare Modernization Act which we voted through in this House, to do just that.

Mr. Speaker, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act not only modernizes the benefits seniors receive under Medicare by adding prescription drugs, but, for the first time provides seniors, with chronic illnesses, access to state-of-the- art, cutting-edge, preventive health care.

With seniors living longer, with one-third of our seniors living with five or more chronic illnesses and using 80 percent of Medicare's dollars, access to chronic disease management programs is necessary, fair, and right.

By offering such preventive care, made possible by modern technology,

our seniors can stay healthier, out of the hospital and emergency rooms and, while living better through modern medicine, reduce Medicare spending. Add this preventive care program to the fact that under this bill, one-half of all senior women will receive their prescription drugs with no premium, no deductible, and no gap in coverage, and $1 to $5 in copayments for generics or brand-name drugs, and our seniors will be able to see that the Medicare Modernization Act we passed offers them much higher quality health care at lower personal cost.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman; and I want to congratulate my colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who have long been leaders on complicated pension issues, and to the whole conference committee for bringing a bill back that we can get to the President's desk to sign because there is literally nothing more important to working Americans than retirement security.

They have the right to know. We have the obligation to assure them that, when they retire, their retirement plans will come to reality and they will receive the benefits that they have long counted on.

When the rate on the 30-year Treasury bond plummeted after the bonds were discontinued, companies found themselves forced to make artificially high contributions to defined benefit pension plans. That is all this does. This just eliminates that requirement for companies with defined benefit pension plans, which we all know are extremely valuable to working people. It protects those companies from having to make artificially high contributions.

With the economy just coming back, this is about as important a jobs bill as we could pass right now because if we do not give these companies relief, they will be forced to divert funds from paying for current employees or hiring new employees because they will have to make sizeable, significant, new, higher contributions to their pension funds.

So this will free up $80 billion over the next 2 years to help grow this economy, and that is about jobs now. It is about retirement security later. So this is a must-pass bill. Is it everything? No, it is not everything. We need a permanent fix to this problem, and we have a permanent fix that needs to go to everyone; but this is a must-must- pass bill, and I urge the body to vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my special order at this time.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act. The goal of this legislation is to create a Medicare program that can provide for our seniors the quality health care in the future that Medicare has been able to provide in the past.

Without the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act we passed and the President signed, the quality of the health care Medicare could provide would not keep pace with modern medical science, period. This bill was not and is not primarily about prescription drugs, though I believe we were morally and medically obliged to make prescription drugs a part of Medicare for all seniors.

The modernization of Medicare was more significantly about two facts. With seniors living longer, chronic illness has become a major fact of life for our seniors; and Medicare, through its old-fashioned structure, literally cannot pay for the preventive programs that can help seniors with chronic illnesses maximize their health and well- being and minimize their visits to the emergency room and the hospital.

Preventive health integrated into Medicare for seniors with chronic illness can both reduce costs and improve the quality of care available to our seniors. This must be done for the quality of life of our seniors but also for the sheer survival of Medicare.

One-third of our seniors have five or more chronic illnesses, and this third uses 80 percent of the resources. In every other sector of the population, we are seeing disease management programs increase the quality of care, increase the well-being of patients and reduce the costs of health care. We musts do no less for our seniors.

We are morally, medically and fiscally bound to integrate disease management into Medicare, both into the plans that Medicare offers to our seniors and into the fee-for-service system that has long been historically the primary means for Medicare to deliver health care services to our seniors.

Only the House bill offered disease management as a new program under Medicare; and through the conference committee we strengthened this program, we broadened it, and we actually gave to those who manage Medicare the right to demonstrate various disease management programs and then simply roll them out to benefit all seniors and all Medicare programs without coming back to Congress. We delay things. We make them difficult. This is a matter of life for our seniors. It is a matter of quality health care for our seniors.

The Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act is just that. It is about prescription drugs and modernizing Medicare so that it will be prepared and capable of delivering cutting-edge, state-of-the-art health care to our seniors and particularly to those seniors with chronic illness.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a friend and colleague who has played a major role in local government in my district, Arline Whitaker. As the Chair of the Farmington Town Council for the past 7 years, Arline has served her town with distinction and dedication.

Arline has been an active, constructive voice in the Farmington community for decades and first entered local government in 1979, serving as a member of the Farmington Town Council from 1989-2004. In addition, she chaired the Conservation Commission from 1988-1989. She continued to serve in various capacities in local government while also contributing her keen mind and boundless energy to develop many local organizations, including the Hill Stead Museum, the Stanley Whitman House, Friends of the Farmington Library, the Farmington Garden Club, and Services for the Elderly, among many others.

In her 7 years serving as chair of the Farmington Town Council, Arline has provided the leadership, enthusiasm, and long hours of hard work to accomplish an impressive list of projects. She led the initiative to build a new senior center, police station, and expand the Farmington library, while also acquiring 554 acres of land for open space preservation. She was involved with the creation of a new upper elementary school that provides our children needed classroom space. In addition, her relentless effort to seek State and Federal funding for local road improvements and the Rails to Trails project has brought new opportunities to Farmington residents to keep fit and enjoy their remarkable, scenic, and historic town.

Arline's long service to the town of Farmington is notable and commendable because it both preserved and protected a rich and wonderful history and prepared Farmington to continue as a strong community for decades to come. As a friend of Arline's, I wish her good health, high energy and joy in all she undertakes, with the time released from her many public responsibilities. My thanks for her public service, the high standards to which she held herself, and for her personal friendship.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that the gentlewoman does not consider me a forceful personality or a leader. But I am here to say that, as chairman of one of the major subcommittees that wrote this bill, I consider myself both a leader on Medicare modernization and reform and a forceful personality, because I am dedicated to this issue. I have worked hard on it. And I believe that I am better to be here than any of my leadership.

This was a joint effort. It was late at night. No question. It was a long vote. And it did inconvenience Members. No question. But the stakes were very high. The need of America's seniors for prescription drugs and a modernized Medicare that could deliver state of the art disease management to help those with chronic illness prevent their diseases from progressing. Yes, their need was urgent and intense. The opportunity was enormous. We could not abandon our responsibility to pass real Medicare prescription drug reform and modernization of Medicare's ability to keep pace with quality health care initiatives. And so, yes, we allowed ourselves to be masters of time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I would respond to the gentleman from New York that I do think it is extremely important when half the women, retired women, in America have the opportunity for the peace of mind of knowing that they will pay no more than $1 or $2 for a generic and $3 to $5 for a brand-name prescription and that is all, no matter how many or how high their drug bills go. Yes, I think it is very important not to let the clock outweigh the interest of half of America's retired senior women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is because we felt the urgency of the need the preceding Member alluded to so eloquently, that not only did we have to pass this bill, but we had included in this bill a discount card that will mean that one-half of all low-income seniors all across America will get 100 percent of their drugs paid for in 6 months. There is urgency for this bill because the need for the subsidies are so great, and because of the average spending, we know that within 6 months, one- half of low-income seniors will be 100 percent protected.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means and chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

(Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is a great day for America. Today President Bush signed a prescription drug bill that will deliver on a promise that this Congress has talked about for 4 years and has passed three different bills to try to achieve it.

Last year after we passed our second bill, the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, would not even allow a vote, would not even allow a vote. That is why when we had the opportunity to pass a bill that would provide, deliver, prescription drugs as a part of Medicare on the basis of voluntary participation to all seniors all across America, we were determined to take it. Furthermore, it is the first bill that counted all seniors in America as Medicare and seniors first and poor second. That is why we are taking all seniors off Medicaid, bringing them on Medicare's drug benefit so they will get the same benefit all across the country because they are seniors first and poor only second. The Senate bill did not do that. Our bill did that.

And we passed this bill and pushed it through and held the vote open because we wanted to make sure that that half of women retired, living on very low incomes, would get what this bill promises them, $1 or $2 copayments on generics and $3 or $5 on prescriptions, that is all.

But we had to pass this bill for another reason. It does more to improve payments for rural health care providers and to link rural health care to sophisticated medical centers than any legislative initiative from this body ever has done, and without it the physicians out now in the rural towns, who are my husband's age and who are about to retire, will not be replaceable. We will not be able to attract the next generation of physicians to rural health care without the really rather arbitrary policy changes in this bill that reflect our experience in rural health and its inability to attract providers. So we saved rural seniors from not having access to doctors, home health agencies, and hospitals. And, furthermore, we link through these regional health plans rural medicine more tightly into sophisticated medical centers. And, lastly, we passed disease management in this bill for the plans on a mandatory basis and for Medicare as an integral part of it in the years to come, and, thereby, for the first time, built preventative health care into the Medicare structure. It is currently, now, solely an illness treatment program.

With the new reforms the President signed today, and with great leadership from Secretary Tommy Thompson, who deserves tremendous credit, both for understanding the need for rural health to be linked into the modern delivery capability of technology, and who understood also the power that disease management is going to give us to help seniors with chronic illness prevent their chronic illnesses from progressing, and how urgent it is that when a plan like Medicare has one-third of its seniors with five chronic illnesses using 80 percent of program dollars that we do something about it, that we act. For 4 years we have talked and not acted. If acting required holding that vote open, and then we saw at the end, two Republicans changed to ``yes'' and two changed to ``no.'' What happened was that my friends on the other side of the aisle who understood the importance of this bill both to the quality of care seniors could achieve and to the revitalization of rural medicine then were free to lay their votes on table, and it was those additional votes that made the difference, and I thank them because bipartisanship is hard in this environment, and I understand it. But we did it for America's seniors. We did it together. The President signed it today, and it is an enormous victory for senior health care and the greatest step forward in women's health that this body has ever passed. And I am proud to stand here and say this Congress passed the modernization of Medicare and the inclusion of prescription drugs for our seniors with the President's help, and I thank him.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.