and aarp is proud to stand with you, chairman bauccus, senator dodd, to announce that gap in medicare, the drug coverage ban known as the doughnut hole to all of you will be substantially filled for millions of middle income americans as part of health reform. i want to applaud chairman bauccus and senator dodd who continue to be champions for this issue and have always fought for people who are struggling to make ends meet. and we stand with both of you. senator bauccus as your strong leadership of the senate finance committee and creativity which led to the development of this very unique solution. we also support your finance committee's process and look forward with optimism to its next steps. but bottom line, without you, chairman bauccus, we certainly would not be here today and we offer all of our thanks for that. >> when the president issued his clarion call for all parties to come together to address the issues of healthcare reform, aarp representing over 40 million members was proud to be one of the first to step forward. today's announcement means that struggling americans