72nd OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2003 Regular Session
 
NOTE:  Matter within  { +  braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within  { -  braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
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 LC 3383
 
                     House Joint Memorial 4
 
Sponsored by Representative KRUSE
 
 
                             SUMMARY
 
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
 
  Urges Congress to enact financially sustainable, voluntary,
universal and privately administered out-patient prescription
drug coverage as part of federal Medicare program.
 
                         JOINT MEMORIAL
To the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United
  States of America, in Congress assembled:
  We, your memorialists, the Seventy-second Legislative Assembly
of the State of Oregon, in legislative session assembled,
respectfully represent as follows:
  Whereas the use of prescription drugs improves the quality of
care and helps patients live healthier, longer and more
productive lives while keeping them out of more costly acute care
settings in the long term; and
  Whereas the increased use of new and improved prescription
drugs has changed the delivery of health care in the United
States since Medicare was enacted, and while two-thirds of the
Medicare population has some form of prescription drug coverage,
although it many times is inadequate, one-third of Medicare
beneficiaries have no coverage at all; and
  Whereas Congress did not enact a prescription drug benefit in
the Medicare program, and therefore the program is inadequate in
providing seniors and people with disabilities with the most
appropriate prescription drug therapies, preventing the delivery
of quality health care at an affordable cost; and
  Whereas the private sector provides affordable coverage by
negotiating discounts on prescription drugs and by meeting the
needs of special populations with chronic diseases and those with
comorbidities through coordinating care with disease management,
drug utilization review and patient education programs, all of
which aid in ameliorating medical errors; and
  Whereas comprehensive reform of the Medicare program would use
the successful tools of the private sector in coordinating care
for these populations and would use the marketplace to foster
competition among private plans, resulting in more choices of
quality coverage for seniors and people with disabilities while
maintaining the financial sustainability of the program; and
  Whereas Congress' inaction has failed to provide for
comprehensive reform of Medicare, encouraging states to use their
own resources to ease the burden on seniors and people with
 
disabilities and effectively assume an unfunded, informal
mandate; and
  Whereas in implementing state programs to assist the Medicare
population, state budgetary constraints can often result in
requirements to restrict and limit access to needed prescription
drugs and in enactment of anticompetitive price controls; now,
therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of
  Oregon:
  (1) The Congress of the United States is respectfully requested
to enact financially sustainable, voluntary, universal and
privately administered out-patient prescription drug coverage as
part of the federal Medicare program.
  (2) A copy of this memorial shall be sent to each member of the
Oregon Congressional Delegation.
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