HM 1077 2003
1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
3	Congress to enact financially sustainable, voluntary,
4	universal, and privately administered outpatient
5	prescription drug coverage as part of the federal Medicare
6	program.
7
8	WHEREAS, the use of prescription drugs improves the quality
9	of care and helps patients live healthier, longer, and more
10	productive lives while keeping them out of more costly acute-
11	care settings in the long term, and
12	WHEREAS, the increased use of new and improved prescription
13	drugs has changed the delivery of health care in the United
14	States since Medicare was enacted, and while two-thirds of the
15	Medicare population has some form of prescription drug coverage,
16	although it many times is inadequate, one-third of Medicare
17	beneficiaries have no coverage at all, and
18	WHEREAS, Congress did not enact a drug benefit in the
19	Medicare program; therefore, the program is inadequate in
20	providing the elderly and disabled the most appropriate drug
21	therapies, preventing the delivery of quality health care at an
22	affordable cost, and
23	WHEREAS, the private sector provides affordable coverage by
24	negotiating discounts on drugs and meeting the needs of special
25	populations with chronic diseases and those with co-morbidities
26	through coordinating care with disease management, drug
27	utilization review, and patient education programs, all of which
28	aid in ameliorating medical errors, and
29	WHEREAS, comprehensive reform of the Medicare program would
30	utilize the successful tools of the private sector in
31	coordinating care for this population and use the marketplace to
32	foster competition among private plans, resulting in more
33	choices of quality coverage for seniors and the disabled while
34	maintaining the financial sustainability of the program, and
35	WHEREAS, Congress’ inaction has failed to provide for
36	comprehensive reform of Medicare, encouraging states to use
37	their own resources to ease the burden of their elderly and
38	disabled populations and effectively assume an unfunded,
39	informal mandate, and
40	WHEREAS, in implementing state programs to assist the
41	Medicare population, state budgetary constraints can often
42	result in requirements to restrict and limit the patients’
43	access to needed prescription drugs, and in the enactment of
44	anticompetitive price controls, NOW, THEREFORE,
45
46	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
47
48	That the Legislature of the State of Florida requests that
49	the United States House of Representatives and the United States
50	Senate enact financially sustainable, voluntary, universal, and
51	privately administered outpatient prescription drug coverage as
52	part of the federal Medicare program.
53	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
54	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
55	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
56	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
57	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.