[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5155-H5156]
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 Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, a number of us met today to 
review the Republican prescription drug benefit plan that is going to 
be presented before this House in the not-too-distant future. I have 
not seen the Democrat plan, but I am sure it has some of the same 
benefits and some of the same problems.
  One of the problems that bothered me the most was that the 
pharmaceutical industry is going to continue to be able to charge 
exorbitant prices for many of the prescription drugs that are going to 
be covered under the prescription drug benefit bill, and that really 
bothers me.
  For the last several weeks, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. 
Gutknecht), myself, and many others on both sides of the aisle have 
been looking into and complaining about the exorbitant prices that are 
being charged to Americans as compared to the people in Canada and 
France and Germany and Spain and other parts of the world. We pay the 
highest prices for prescription drugs of any country on the face of the 
Earth; and when we start trying to, as Americans, to buy prescription 
drugs, the very same drugs that are sold here in America, from Canada, 
from pharmacies in Canada, where they charge maybe one-fifth or one-
half or one-tenth the price of what they are here, the Food and Drug 
Administration starts saying, oh, my gosh, there is a question of 
safety; and they threaten to penalize, even prosecute, people who bring 
pharmaceuticals into this country.
  My question has been why is it that the American people are paying 
two, three, four, five, 10 times as much for pharmaceutical products as 
they are paying in Canada right next door or in Spain or France or 
other parts of the world? Now we are going to pass a prescription drug 
bill that does not address this problem? The taxpayers are going to 
spend billions, probably trillions, of dollars for pharmaceutical 
products without any real control over these expenditures?
  I am not for price controls. I believe in the free market system; but 
at the same time, I do not believe the American people should pay 
exorbitant prices for the same product that is being sold 50 miles away 
along the Canadian border to the Canadian people, and when Americans go 
up there to try to save money, because it costs so much for their 
pharmaceutical products, they are going to be penalized for it and the 
FDA says that they cannot be reimported into this country, the very 
same products, and they complain about safety.
  We found that there has been absolutely no safety problem whatsoever; 
and so at this point, unless we make some changes in our prescription 
drug bill, I am not going to vote for it. I am not going to vote for a 
bill that is going to charge the American people, the American 
taxpayer, huge amounts of money for pharmaceutical products for seniors 
when they can get those same products next door for less money, and 
that is just something that cannot be tolerated.
  In addition to that, what about the rest of us that will not be 
covered under the prescription drug bill? What about the rest of 
Americans that are paying these exorbitant prices? Will the additional 
profits that are going to be made be passed on to them so that they can 
lower the prices a little bit to benefit the seniors who are covered 
under the prescription drug benefits of this bill? It is something that 
we cannot tolerate.
  We need to address the entire problem of exorbitant prescription drug 
prices, pharmaceutical prices here in the United States.

                              {time}  1930

  The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) has been working on this 
for a long time. I join in his army to try to do something about it. We 
are not for price controls but the pharmaceutical industry needs to 
realize we are not going to pay exorbitant prices when they are not 
charging the same prices in other parts of the world.
  They are saying it is because we spend so much on research and 
development. If that is the case, spread it around, do not load it on 
the back of the American people.
  In addition to that, many, many of these products have been 
subsidized by the American taxpayer through our health agencies, Health 
and Human Services. Last night the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. 
Gutknecht) talked about one where $500 million had been spent on 
research and development, yet Glaxo had a $9 billion profit on this 
product and they only gave $35 million back in royalties to the United 
States Government through HHS. Those are things that we cannot 
tolerate. Something has to be done about it. We are going to continue 
to

[[Page H5156]]

pound on this issue until there are some positive changes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
wish to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Burton) and state that unless a bill comes to this floor that has 
a mechanism in it to have a negotiated rate for large numbers of 
buyers, as we do with our Department of Defense buying and our Veterans 
Department buying, we are going to force Americans out there in the 
drug market in their tiny little canoe on an ocean that is very, very 
rough. They cannot get a good price unless there is a mechanism within 
a bill which is cleared here which would provide for negotiated rate 
buying. I thank the gentleman for bringing this problem up.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, let me say I want to look at the 
gentlewoman's approach to making the way we deal with veterans' 
pharmaceuticals maybe the way that we deal with things under this 
health bill.

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