[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 132 (Monday, September 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9163-H9164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG FAIRNESS FOR SENIORS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a 
serious problem that affects the elderly and people without health 
insurance in my home State of Ohio and across the country.
  Older Americans are having an increasingly difficult time affording 
prescription drugs. By one estimate, one in eight senior citizens in 
America has been forced to choose between buying food and buying 
medicine.
  In an effort to discover why this is the case, I unveiled a study 
last week conducted at my request by the minority staff of the House 
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight that investigated 
prescription drug prices in my northeast Ohio district.
  What this study reveals is startling. Seniors and those who buy their 
own prescription drugs in northeast Ohio are charged more than double 
for their prescription drugs compared to what drug manufacturers charge 
most-favored customers. Those preferred customers are HMOs, insurance 
companies, and large institutions.
  To conduct this study, members of my staff obtained the prices of 10 
brand name drugs with the highest sales to the elderly, including 
Ticlid for stroke victims and Zocor to treat high cholesterol.

[[Page H9164]]

  The results are based on a survey of retail prescription drug prices 
in chain and independently-owned drug stores across my district. These 
prices were compared to the prices paid by the drug companies' most-
favored customers.
  For the 10 drugs cited above, the study found that the average 
difference between the price paid by a senior citizen and the price 
paid by an HMO was 98 percent, almost double the price for a senior 
citizen. Similar studies have recently been conducted by other 
Democratic Members in their districts, including the gentleman from 
Maine (Mr. Tom Allen), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. John 
Tierney), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tom Barrett), the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Henry Waxman), and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Jim Turner). The average price differential of these studies combined 
is 108 percent.
  With this in mind, I hasten to say that the high price of 
prescription drugs is not the fault of the pharmacist or the 
pharmacies. Pharmacies in fact have very small markups for prescription 
drugs, sometimes as low as 3 percent.
  The problem is with large drug companies who drive up prices. 
Drugmakers whose annual profits top $20 billion make six times more 
profit on prescription drugs than do retail pharmacists. It is no 
secret that greed is the driving force behind this problem. Because 
HMOs buy their drugs in bulk, manufacturers sell to HMOs at a discount, 
and then conveniently shift that cost to the drugmaker on the backs of 
our seniors.
  Pharmacies, as to our seniors, have no real choice in the matter. 
Unfortunately, seniors, many of whom are on fixed incomes, are 
obviously the ones who suffer. As we all know, the later years of life 
often bring reduced incomes and higher health care costs. Few elderly 
can escape this dilemma. We have a responsibility to take steps to make 
medicine more affordable for older Americans.
  I want to tell the story of one elderly woman who lives in Elyria, 
Ohio, in the county in which I live, and is a victim of this ongoing 
price discrimination. This woman, who asked to remain anonymous, is 67 
years old. She suffers from poor eyesight, high blood pressure, and a 
number of other serious ailments. She takes 13 prescription medicines. 
Her only income is social security, which is roughly $800 per month. 
While she has some insurance coverage, this woman's drug costs amount 
to almost 40 percent of her income. She said after she pays for her 
medicine, she has about $20 to buy groceries for the whole month.
  More tragically, she has had to begin reducing some of the dosages to 
save money. She is supposed to take four pills a day. She will cut them 
into half and take four half pills a day, for instance.
  This situation is surely unacceptable. The bottom line is we need to 
take steps to protect the elderly, who should not suffer this 
indignity. Our Nation's seniors should not bear the burden of paying 
for pharmaceutical company profits.
  To address this issue head on, I signed on as an original cosponsor 
to a bill introduced by the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Tom Allen) to 
reduce the costs of prescription drugs for senior citizens. The 
Prescription Drugs Fairness for Seniors Act aims to protect senior 
citizens from drug price discrimination by making prescription drugs 
available to Medicare beneficiaries at the reduced price.
  The bill achieves this by allowing pharmacies that serve seniors in 
Medicare to buy prescription drugs at the best market price available 
under the Federal supply schedule, which will reduce prescription drug 
prices for senior citizens by up to 50 percent.
  An elderly person's well-being and quality of life are often 
determined by access to medicine prescribed by their doctor. This 
legislation directly addresses a problem we can no longer ignore. I 
urge my colleagues to act on behalf of the elderly and support this 
important measure, H.R. 4627.

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