[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 26, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GORTON:
  S. 2466. A bill to require the United States Trade Representative to 
enter into negotiations to eliminate price controls imposed by certain 
foreign countries on prescription drugs; to the Committee on Finance.


              prescription drug price control legislation

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill that will 
direct the U.S. Trade Representative for the next year to negotiate 
fairer and more equal prices from foreign governmental purchasers, and, 
in the absence of success of doing so, make specific statutory 
recommendations to this Congress.
  This is a proposal the drug companies themselves suggested to me. I 
regard it as a constructive proposal, but not as a solution to the 
problem standing alone. But it is a tangible result of the course I 
have already charted, and one that came as a result of my communication 
with drug companies of my concerns and the earlier draft of the bill I 
am introducing today.
  The problem is a very simple one. American citizens are paying too 
much for prescription drugs because our companies are allowing foreign 
purchasers to pay too little for exactly the same drugs. At the very 
least, American citizens who have spent so much of their tax money in 
financing the research and development of these drugs should not be 
paying more than purchasers in other countries.
  That is the goal of each of the two bills I am introducing today, but 
what I really want and what the American people really want is a 
solution and answer to this problem.
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