Prescription Drug Donut Hole

Floor Speech

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. About 80,000 senior citizens and people with disabilities have already fallen into what we call the doughnut hole. What is that? That is a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage and is a result of--you know, we just heard criticism of so-called ObamaCare--but the Republicans passed a bill called Medicare part D.

But what it says is that Mrs. Jones, after a certain amount of money that has been spent on her prescription drugs stands in line at the drugstore and says, I'm ordering a refill of my prescriptions.

And the druggist says, Well, Mrs. Jones, that will be $100.

She says, What do you mean, I thought I was insured?

They say, Oh, no, you've gone over the amount of money that the government will give you, and now you're going to have to pay $3,000-plus out of pocket in order to get covered again.

Well, we finally have done something about that, and checks are going to start going out this week to people, the 80,000 that have fallen into the doughnut hole, of $250 to try and help them pay for that, and we're going to ease out the prescription drug doughnut hole.

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