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Thank you, Bob (Ingram) and J.P. (Garnier), for all you and your team at Glaxo have done to provide quality pharmaceuticals to America's older men and women.

Your "Orange Card" is an exciting, innovative idea with so much promise � I'm just delighted to be with you today.

It's also good to be with Senators Santorum and Specter and Representatives Burr and Pryce, who are working hard to make sure that older Americans have quality, affordable health care. Thank you all for your leadership and energy on an issue so important to America's seniors.

As all of us know, the President is committed to adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare as part of his broader commitment to strengthen and protect the Medicare system. For him, that's non-negotiable.

But as we continue to work to strengthen Medicare for America's seniors, we have to look for other ways of immediately helping the millions of retirees who depend on prescription medications yet whose monthly budgets are often stretched thin.

That's why the President proposed his discount drug card as a first step, which is so very important to the process of providing real reductions in prescription drug costs.

Recently, a federal court said we had to hold off on making the card available. But we're considering all our legal options as we pursue making the card available to every senior citizen.

But now the private sector, as it so often does, is stepping up to the plate in a big way. It has found a way to implement the President's plan to provide real savings to seniors right away.

The Glaxo Orange Card is a dynamic, effective and very practical way for seniors to receive significant reductions -- an average of 30 percent -- on outpatient g-s-k medicines.

In some cases, the savings might be as high as 40 percent, savings in the range projected for the President's discount card.

By targeting seniors whose income is 300 percent of the federally-defined poverty line or less, Glaxo is opening up the door for significant savings to an estimated 10 million Americans. That will make a tremendous difference in the lives of so many people.

The application process is easy � quick � and understandable to everyone.

It's my hope that other pharmaceutical companies will follow Glaxo's lead. This is exactly the kind of approach we need -- innovation and competition in the private sector, not counterproductive price controls imposed by Uncle Sam.

The story of price controls is a study in failure. We need creativity, not another well-intended but ineffective and burdensome pricing structure mandated by Washington.

I want to again thank Glaxo for this tremendous step forward.

Thank you for letting me be with you today.

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