| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kennedy: Medicare drug bill just a down payment
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Medicare reform is the focus of intense debate on Capitol Hill. At the heart of the matter is a prescription drug benefit. The House bill would create competition between private plans and conventional Medicare in 2010. The Senate bill opens the door to certified private prescription drugs plans, if they offer the same benefits as the government. On Wednesday's "Inside Politics," anchor Judy Woodruff spoke to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, on his views of the issues. She began by asking him about his signing off on a plan that would leave some seniors with less drug coverage than they need and whether he undercut those seniors and some of his own Democratic allies. KENNEDY: Absolutely not. There's enormous need for prescription drugs, a need for the senior citizens of this country. Costs are too high. This is only $400 billion. The seniors are going to spend $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years. We're only providing $400 billion. That's only 22 percent. I'd like to do much better. And on the floor of the United States Senate, in the period of these next 10 days, there will be efforts, which I'll be involved in, to strengthen that program. I think we ought to try to have a more expansive program, rather than some of the tax cuts that we have just recently enacted. But this is going to be a down payment. And one thing is going to be for sure. When we get this as a down payment, we're going to come back again and again and again and fight to make sure that we have a good program. WOODRUFF: But, senator, right now Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. And not only that, whatever you do in the Senate is going to have to be compromised in the direction of the House version, which is much friendlier to the insurance industry and which has provisions in it which you have already called a poison pill. KENNEDY: Well, it is true. The House bill has a provision which would effectively dismantle Medicare. We will have no bill if that is the provision that comes out of the conference [committee]. But the fact is, we're making good progress. There is a bipartisan effort in the Senate to get legislation. I strongly believe that this is a foundation on which to build. WOODRUFF: But you're saying you trust the administration to hold up its end of the bargain here? KENNEDY: They have not stated exactly what their position is. I'm not a naysayer. We're not going to have this $400 billion in another year. The Republicans in the Senate of the United States basically abandoned the administration's view that they were going to hold our seniors, the Medicare recipients, hostage to getting into a drug benefit only if they join the private sector. And they were going to coerce them or bribe them to do that. That was unacceptable. And we Democrats have fought that. WOODRUFF: Let me ask you, though, about the politics of this. At a time when the Democrats are trying mightily to carve out distinct positions for themselves against a very popular Republican president, in effect what you have done is helped a Republican president take a very controversial issue off the table. KENNEDY: What's happened here, if this bill passes that we have in the Senate of the United States, and we strengthen it, the winners are going to be the seniors. And what we will be able to do for the seniors across this country is say, "We were the ones that have been battling for Medicare. The Republicans have been opposed to it." When we pass this, we're going to say in 2004, "Elect Democrats. We'll finish the job." WOODRUFF: One final question, senator. Another ... big issue the Democrats have tried to make something out of this year is the economy. A number of those running for president have been, in effect, counting on the economy not recovering. And yet, you have got the markets coming back. The jobs issue, they don't seem to be able to make much of an issue out of that. Are the Democrats making a mistake, do you think, by counting on the economy remaining sour? And if they're making a mistake, what issue do they have? KENNEDY: Well, first of all, Democrats can never win because of the inadequacies of the Republican Party. We have to stand for something. We have got high unemployment and long periods of unemployment where people that want to work, can work, have worked, just can't find a job. And it isn't just sort of blue-collar workers. These are white-collar workers. And isn't in my home state of Massachusetts. It's in the state of Washington. It's across this country. The economy is the key, and it has been, traditionally, historically, for the Democrats. And I think our nominee will be able to make the case.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
