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CNN Live Saturday
Bush Expected to Address Prescription Drugs in State of Union
Aired January 25, 2003 - 18:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Along with war and the economy President Bush is going to give more details about his agenda including prescriptions drugs as part of Medicare in his State of the Union message Tuesday night. Senior White House correspondent John King went to the heart of this story in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Early afternoon at the Coney Island Texas lunch, a Scranton landmark for 80 years now. Lucy Warner (ph) is part of a small staff that does it all 30 hours a week at age 65, not just to keep busy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I already had Medicare and they only paid for hospital and doctors. They don't pay for prescriptions. They don't pay for dental, and they don't pay for eye.
KING: Even with steady work, she sometimes skips the doctor's appointment and leaves prescriptions for high blood pressure and other ailments unfilled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of them is 40 and some of them is 80. You can't do it. When you have $450 a month rent, you got a gas bill, electric, all your utilities, they come before anything. That's the way I look at it.
KING: This is an increasingly familiar scene in an aging America. Retirement delayed in many cases because the drugs that help prolong life cost more than a fixed income can handle.
MIKE BROWN, OWNER, BROWN'S DRUG STORE: It's hard to see these people having to make a choice between you know, food and prescriptions. Some of them stretch them out, maybe they don't take them every day. They try to make a month supply of medications last, you know, two months.
KING: A prescription drug benefit for seniors will be a priority in the president's State of the Union address. A little time in Brown's Drug Store, a reminder of the old adage that good policy can be good politics.
Mr. Bush lost Pennsylvania in campaign 2000, but is aggressively targeting the state for 2004, already visiting 18 times in his first two years as president. The prescription drug issue could prove critical. In the last presidential election, nearly 20 percent of the state's voters were age 65 or older. Some here at the South Side Senior Center get help from a Pennsylvania State program, but Joan Conroy (ph) is among the many whose modest income is still too high to qualify.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One hundred and twenty-one dollars a month, I take Fosamax, which is all approximately $64 a month, and I take Lotrel, which is $58 approximately besides the vitamins that I have to take and everything else. So, I'm broke.
KING: The regulars give the staff a medical profile in case of an emergency.
KATHLEEN O'BOYLE, SOUTH SIDE SENIOR CENTER: Sometimes it's stunning like to look at a piece of paper and see someone who's taking, juggling 10 different drugs to stay alive or to stay well, or just to be able to walk out the door and come here.
KING: Lunchtime often draws the politicians in election years. Reliable voters, but a skeptical bunch to say the least. Bill Cod (ph) voted Bush, but now sees a president worried much more about Saddam Hussein than problems here at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he could argue like, for us like he does about that guy, we'd be in business here.
KING: Bill Flint (ph) says the president's promise of a new drug benefit sounds all too familiar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seeing is believing, you know. This has been said so many times before and they couldn't get it off the ground when Clinton was in. So, you know it's long overdue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roll the ball (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KING: Ed Weller (ph) blames the Congress more than the president and says broken promises from the politicians are just another part of the daily routine.
John King, CNN, Scranton, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Union>
Aired January 25, 2003 - 18:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Along with war and the economy President Bush is going to give more details about his agenda including prescriptions drugs as part of Medicare in his State of the Union message Tuesday night. Senior White House correspondent John King went to the heart of this story in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Early afternoon at the Coney Island Texas lunch, a Scranton landmark for 80 years now. Lucy Warner (ph) is part of a small staff that does it all 30 hours a week at age 65, not just to keep busy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I already had Medicare and they only paid for hospital and doctors. They don't pay for prescriptions. They don't pay for dental, and they don't pay for eye.
KING: Even with steady work, she sometimes skips the doctor's appointment and leaves prescriptions for high blood pressure and other ailments unfilled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of them is 40 and some of them is 80. You can't do it. When you have $450 a month rent, you got a gas bill, electric, all your utilities, they come before anything. That's the way I look at it.
KING: This is an increasingly familiar scene in an aging America. Retirement delayed in many cases because the drugs that help prolong life cost more than a fixed income can handle.
MIKE BROWN, OWNER, BROWN'S DRUG STORE: It's hard to see these people having to make a choice between you know, food and prescriptions. Some of them stretch them out, maybe they don't take them every day. They try to make a month supply of medications last, you know, two months.
KING: A prescription drug benefit for seniors will be a priority in the president's State of the Union address. A little time in Brown's Drug Store, a reminder of the old adage that good policy can be good politics.
Mr. Bush lost Pennsylvania in campaign 2000, but is aggressively targeting the state for 2004, already visiting 18 times in his first two years as president. The prescription drug issue could prove critical. In the last presidential election, nearly 20 percent of the state's voters were age 65 or older. Some here at the South Side Senior Center get help from a Pennsylvania State program, but Joan Conroy (ph) is among the many whose modest income is still too high to qualify.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One hundred and twenty-one dollars a month, I take Fosamax, which is all approximately $64 a month, and I take Lotrel, which is $58 approximately besides the vitamins that I have to take and everything else. So, I'm broke.
KING: The regulars give the staff a medical profile in case of an emergency.
KATHLEEN O'BOYLE, SOUTH SIDE SENIOR CENTER: Sometimes it's stunning like to look at a piece of paper and see someone who's taking, juggling 10 different drugs to stay alive or to stay well, or just to be able to walk out the door and come here.
KING: Lunchtime often draws the politicians in election years. Reliable voters, but a skeptical bunch to say the least. Bill Cod (ph) voted Bush, but now sees a president worried much more about Saddam Hussein than problems here at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he could argue like, for us like he does about that guy, we'd be in business here.
KING: Bill Flint (ph) says the president's promise of a new drug benefit sounds all too familiar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seeing is believing, you know. This has been said so many times before and they couldn't get it off the ground when Clinton was in. So, you know it's long overdue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roll the ball (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KING: Ed Weller (ph) blames the Congress more than the president and says broken promises from the politicians are just another part of the daily routine.
John King, CNN, Scranton, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Union>
