01.31.06

Cantwell Reacts to Bush’s State of the Union

No Fixes for Troubled Medicare Rx Plan; Record Oil Company Profits with No Plan to Cut Skyrocketing Fuel Costs

WASHINGTON, DC – Wednesday U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued the following statement following President Bush’s State of the Union:

"Working families across America are struggling with ever-increasing gas and home heating costs, but yesterday we learned that Exxon Mobil reported $36 billion in 2005 profits, the highest of any company during a single year. Tonight, the President finally acknowledged what’s been obvious to every American family struggling with rising energy costs: while the world’s major oil companies post record-breaking profits, our addiction to foreign oil poses a serious danger to our economy and national security.

"The rhetoric doesn't match the reality of his priorities. After five years of watching gas price soar and our dependence on foreign oil grow worse, I hope the President’s budget next week will be a real turning point.

"On health care, the president doesn't have a concrete plan for how to address the disastrous implementation of his ‘signature’ initiative – the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. I’ve heard from thousands of seniors around my state about the problems they’ve had enrolling in the plan, selecting a plan, finding out which plans cover which medications, paying the right copay, receiving their prescriptions, the list goes on and on. The president needed to step up tonight and show seniors a way out of the labyrinth – but he failed to do that.

"Talking about lowering health care costs tonight he focused only what he calls ‘choice and the free market’ – but we need only to look at the bungled implementation of the Medicare Part D plan for proof that too much choice and poor management in health care equals disaster.

"The Health Savings Accounts and tax breaks are the right prescription for the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance companies, big banks and investment industry, not the patient. These accounts and tax breaks do not make health care cheaper – they shift the cost, onto the beneficiary, just as the prescription drug program shifts the costs of drugs to low income beneficiaries and to overwhelmed pharmacies.

"With health care costs soaring and consumers paying more and more at the gas pump and to heat their homes, I had expected the president to do better than repackage the same failed proposals."