By MARY LANDRIEU

When you’re from Louisiana, it’s not difficult to put a face on the troubling numbers behind the debate over Medicare prescription drug benefits. Just recently, an elderly couple from Loreauville contacted me about the overwhelming cost of their prescription drugs. Together, they require nine different prescription drugs on a daily basis and pay a total of $400 a month for these drugs. Like many seniors, they’re on a fixed income and as you might imagine, the cost of their medication makes it tremendously difficult for them to make ends meet. There are countless other parents and grandparents in our state who face similar obstacles, and frankly I believe this is a battle they shouldn’t have to face alone. I want to let you know about my work in Congress to help alleviate this unnecessary strain on our elderly.

Louisiana has the fifth-highest poverty rate in the nation and the third-largest elderly population. Furthermore, we have the second-highest mortality rates from cancer, diabetes and heart disease, all of which are treated with prescription drugs. Yet, only one in five of our seniors has access to a prescription drug plan. In addition, the costs of drugs are rising, with the average price of prescription drugs rising 10 percent last year.

These statistics are startling. No one in Louisiana, or America for that matter, should be forced to choose between buying food, paying rent, or paying for drugs they need to survive. I remain committed to my pledge to implement a Medicare Drug Benefit that is affordable and available to all senior citizens with reasonable cost sharing. Under the plan that I supported on the floor of the Senate, almost 600,000 Medicare recipients in Louisiana would receive coverage and almost 400,000 low-income Medicare recipients in Louisiana would receive extra help in paying for drugs in return for nominal co-payments.

One of the most effective and immediate ways to provide seniors with access to prescription drugs is to make drugs more affordable. To this end, the Senate recently passed S.812, the Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act. This plan allows for generic versions of more expensive brand-name drugs to come onto the market faster, pharmacists and wholesalers to import cheaper drugs from Canada, and states to negotiate drug discounts for those not eligible for Medicaid. This bill is expected to save the American taxpayer almost $50 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

Louisiana’s seniors should be guaranteed the right to affordable prescription drugs provided through a system that uses choice and competition to improve the quality of benefits offered to patients.

With this system in place, our seniors can go to bed at night comforted with the knowledge that they are their families will have help when they need it the most.

MARY LANDRIEU represents Louisiana in the United States Senate.