The cost of prescription drugs in this nation is our society's unnecessary evil. In this day and age of medical advances and technologies, prescription drugs and drug therapies are saving and changing lives. Unfortunately, despite the life-saving benefits of pharmaceuticals, many people are being shut out from the benefits of these medical advances because of the exorbitant costs.

In Washington, there are two very different ideas as to how to provide prescription drug benefits to our nation's seniors. The Democratic approach offers a guaranteed benefit through Medicare, while the Republican proposal uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize private HMOs and managed care companies to offer prescription drug plans to seniors.

It is my belief that a prescription drug benefit should be voluntary, affordable, provide comprehensive and universal coverage to all seniors, and be administered through Medicare. For this reason, I supported the Democratic Medicare Prescription Benefit and Discount Act.

Under this plan, which adds a new part to the existing Medicare program, a senior would receive some type of assistance for every dollar they spend on prescription drugs.

This is one of the many differences between the Democratic and Republican plans. Under the Republican proposal, there is a huge gap of coverage for seniors to fill because they must take $3,700 out of their own wallet for drug costs before full assistance kicks in. This plan would be particularly burdensome to the seniors in Pennsylvania who do not meet the income requirements to qualify for assistance through PACE or PACENET but yet, still cannot afford their prescription drugs.

In addition, the Republican plan has a problem in that it relies upon the integrity of the insurance companies to step up to the plate and offer our seniors affordable prescription drug-only plans as opposed to setting standards under Medicare. Without set standards, prescription drug plans and coverage could vary from region to region and state to state under the Republican proposal. You might have someone in California paying a $35 monthly premium and her sister in Pennsylvania paying a $75 monthly premium. Even worse, we might see someone in Pittsburgh paying $80 a month and his friend in Scranton paying $50 a month.

One only needs to look at the Medicare+Choice programs to see that this type of structure does not work in all regions of the country. These plans have all but disappeared from rural regions in our nation, including in Pennsylvania. The Republican plan would only provide seniors two choices in coverage either through a private Medicare+Choice plan or a private prescription drug-only plan. There is no doubt that the very same will occur - many individuals in our rural regions will be left without prescription drug coverage.

Providing seniors a prescription drug benefit should not be a partisan issue. It is an issue that should focus on providing the best benefit to the most people. In an effort to demonstrate which plan would provide the greatest coverage to seniors, it might be constructive to put the plans side by side and do a comparison.

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the average senior spends approximately $2,400 a year on prescription drugs. Taking that figure, under the Democratic plan, the senior would pay $860 a year, however, under the suggested standards of the Republican plan, the senior would pay $1,720 a year. For those who spend more than the $2,400 average, the savings are even greater under the Democratic plan.

Consider the senior citizen who spends $5,000 annually in prescription drug costs. Under the Democratic plan, their total out-of-pocket expense would be $1,380. Under the Republican plan, they would pay $4,120 in out-of-pocket expenses. The reason there is such a difference in savings between the two plans is that the Republican proposal has a higher monthly premium, annual deductible, and co-pay, as well as requires seniors to spend $3,700 of their own money before full coverage begins. Under the Democratic plan, seniors are covered for each and every dollar they spend for medicine.

In addition, under the Democratic plan, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would have the buying power of Medicare's 35 million recipients to guarantee lower prices. This can make a big difference as Secretary Tommy Thompson showed when he was able to obtain an 83% cost-savings on the prescription antibiotic Cipro because of this unified buying power.

Obviously, the Democratic plan proves to be superior to the Republican proposal for two reasons. First, it is a guaranteed benefit through Medicare, and second, it does a better job in providing more comprehensive assistance to seniors. However, this plan does not come without cost.

Republicans claim that they could not afford to do more for seniors and criticize the Democrats for the cost of our proposal. A prescription drug benefit, however, that adequately meets beneficiaries' needs is achievable: it is only a matter of priorities.

Senior citizens were not a priority for the Republicans last year; almost half of all elderly households received absolutely no benefit from the $1.7 trillion tax cut package. Now this year, they are unwilling to devote even half of what they spent on tax cuts to provide meaningful prescription drug coverage for seniors.

The Republicans clearly demonstrated that their priority is tax cuts for the wealthiest 3% of Americans and not seniors when they pushed legislation through the House this year that would permanently repeal the estate tax. Congress had already voted, with my support, to repeal the estate tax for 97% of estate owners in the nation.

With this additional estate tax repeal legislation for the top 3% of estate owners, the Republicans are helping about 23,000 of the richest people in the United States at a cost of $56 billion in tax relief in just one year and more than $135 billion over ten years. These funds could be used to provide a real prescription drug benefit to the 35 million Medicare beneficiaries.

When faced with the decision between a tax cut for a small number of individuals and universal prescription drug benefit, I decided it was more important to invest in our nation's 35 million seniors.

It is not breaking news that seniors in this nation need help with their medications. Seniors in Pennsylvania demonstrate that fact very clearly. Only about 12% of seniors age 65 and older in Pennsylvania participate in PACE and PACENET, prescription drug assistance programs for low-income seniors. This means that 1,689,157 seniors in Pennsylvania do not participate in these programs. While some may have private insurance, the vast majority of these seniors are not eligible because their income is just barely over the limit.

So, with all of this need, the Democrats have made providing a prescription drug benefit a priority in our nation's budget. And yes, while our plan is more costly than the Republican plan, there is a way to pay for it. We just need to convince the Republicans that providing a comprehensive drug benefit to millions of seniors is more important than a tax cut to a few thousand estate owners, who are also the top 3% income earners in the nation.

I encourage you to do the comparison yourself using your own prescription drug costs. To access the Prescription Drug Savings Calculator which will show you what your savings will be under the Democratic prescription drug package and the Republican drug plan, visit my website at www.house.gov/doyle. There you will see the link to the calculator in which you can compute your costs under the two proposals and see what plan provides you the most benefit.

A prescription drug benefit is long overdue. Making sure it is the right one is all a matter of priorities.