[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9465-S9466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXTENSION OF PATENT FOR LODINE

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will be very brief.
  Mr. President, I have sent a letter to my colleagues about the 
inclusion of the extension for the patent of the drug Lodine in the 
health insurance conference report and announced my intention to raise 
a point of order about this, since a similar provision was not included 
in either the House or the Senate bill. Whatever the intentions of 
whoever inserted this into conference committee report in the dark of 
night--and I don't know what their intentions were--certainly the 
impact of

[[Page S9466]]

this provision on consumers will be disastrous. Moreover, granting such 
an extension in the dark of night is not the way to legislate.
  So all of my colleagues have a letter announcing my intent to 
challenge this provision on a point of order. I am also considering 
offering a concurrent resolution to delete this provision from the 
conference report. My hope is that we can get bipartisan support for 
this effort, in which case, one way or the other, we can knock this 
special interest giveaway out of conference committee report.
  I want to state to my colleagues that this patent extension that we 
see before us for the manufacturer of Lodine essentially means that for 
a period of 2 years, and in effect over a period of 5 years because of 
the way the provision is written, cheaper versions of the prescription 
drug will not be made available to consumers. People who are suffering 
from arthritis and are not able to buy a cheaper drug will pay millions 
of dollars that they should not have to. This is really outrageous.

  When I was a college professor, I talked about conference committees, 
and I knew they were kind of the third House of the Congress, but I had 
no idea that this type of thing happened all the time, or some of the 
time. But it should not happen any of the time.
  What we have here is a company that sells over a quarter of a billion 
dollars worth of a drug, willing to pay the Government $10 billion a 
year for the additional costs that the patent extension will cost the 
Government in increased Medicaid and health care costs, but not willing 
to do anything for consumers and seniors. And quite frankly, the 
payments to the Government are nothing compared to the ripoff of 
seniors and consumers.
  I hope that we may be able to do something about this situation 
together, in a bipartisan way. I believe that Senator Kennedy, Senator 
Kassebaum, and many other Senators will be interested in doing that one 
way or the other. I started talking about this yesterday when I 
realized that, in the dark of night, this provision had been inserted, 
and one way or the other I am going to take action as a Senator from 
Minnesota to do everything I can to knock this provision out.
  This provision represents a giveaway to a special interest at the 
expense of patients and senior citizens, and, quite frankly, the 
mysterious manner in which it was added to the conference report late 
at night is not the way we ought to be conducting our affairs here. 
This is a perfect example of the kind of practice that makes people 
lose confidence in our political process. Therefore, I hope all 
Senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, will join me in my effort to 
knock this provision out.
  Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.

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