[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 73 (Thursday, May 15, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise again today to talk about the high 
cost that Americans pay for prescription drugs, particularly relative 
to the industrialized world.
  As I have mentioned on the floor before, we believe that Americans 
should pay their fair share in terms of the cost of the research and 
development of these miracle drugs. We even feel that it is fair enough 
that we should subsidize some of the developing countries, such as 
those in sub-Saharan Africa. We think, however, that it is outrageous 
that we are required to subsidize the starving Swiss.
  Let me talk a little bit about what we did in the last 3 weeks. I was 
in Germany 3 weeks ago, and one of my staffers was able to go to one of 
the pharmacies at the Munich airport. Most of us know that when we buy 
things at the airport, that is usually not the cheapest place to buy 
things; and we went to the pharmacy there at the Munich airport and 
bought some drugs.
  Among those we bought was Glucophage. Glucophage for 30 tablets, 850 
milligrams, we bought at the Munich airport for $5 American. That same 
drug at a pharmacy in Minnesota back in my district is not $5 but 
$29.95.
  Cipro is a very effective antibiotic made by a German company by the 
name of Bayer. They came up with Bayer aspirins. They have been around 
a long time, but Cipro became very important when we went through the 
anthrax scare here in the Capitol complex. We purchased it at $35.12 
for 10 tablets at 250 milligrams. That same package in Minnesota sells 
for $55; $35 dollars in Germany, $55 in the United States.
  Actually the story gets worse. Another very popular drug, Zestril, we 
bought for $25.04 American. It sells in the United States for $59.95, 
more than double the price for the same drug, and the list gets worse.
  One of the worst examples is this. This is a drug called Tamoxifen. 
Tamoxifen is a miracle drug. It is probably the best drug ever 
developed in terms of treating breast cancer. We bought this drug at 
the Munich airport at the pharmacy there, 60 tablets, 20 milligrams for 
$59.05 American. This same drug, if we buy it here in pharmacies in 
Washington, D.C., will sell for $360; $60 in Germany, $360 for exactly 
the same drug here in the United States.
  What makes this story even worse is that the taxpayers paid for 
almost all of the research costs to develop this miracle drug. It was 
developed essentially by the NIH. The company went out and got the 
patents, and now Americans are paying again.
  Many of my colleagues say, well, shame on the pharmaceutical 
industry; and it is easy to say that, but I do not say shame on the 
pharmaceutical industry. I say shame on us. We are the policymakers. We 
are the ones who have created an environment that the pharmaceutical 
companies are taking advantage of; and shame on us for letting this 
happen, and let me give my colleagues another shame on us.
  There was research that came out just a few days ago, the first time 
I had seen it; and what it said was that 29 percent of the 
prescriptions written to seniors in this country go unfilled because 
they cannot afford them. Shame on us.
  We have created an environment where seniors today cannot afford the 
prescriptions that doctors write for them to save their lives. Shame on 
us. That is the problem.
  The answer is open up markets. We have open markets for virtually 
everything else. The Food and Drug Administration allows hundreds and 
millions of tons of food to come into our country with virtually no 
inspection; but if a senior tries to import Tamoxifen to save their 
lives from Munich, Germany, they are treated as common criminals. Shame 
on us.
  The answer is to pass commonsense, reimportation language this year. 
We are going to be talking about prescription drug benefits under 
Medicare here in the next several weeks in the Congress; but if we do 
not start seriously talking about affordable, if we do not talk about 
what we are going to do to control prices in this whole thing, there is 
not enough money in the Federal Treasury to pay for that benefit 
because we know the Congressional Budget Office tells us that over the 
next 10 years seniors in this country will spend $1.8 trillion on 
prescriptions. We have allotted $400 billion in this budget resolution 
over the next 10 years to take care not only of a prescription drug 
benefit but also to modernize Medicare, which is the right thing to do, 
and equalize the reimbursements.
  The bottom line is that there is not enough money in this budget or 
any budget to pay for these huge disparities. Americans deserve world-
class drugs at world market prices.

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