[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H6434]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        COMPETITIVE TENSION WILL LOWER DRUG PRICES FOR AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gerlach). 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 tonight to talk about the 
high price that Americans pay for prescription drugs relative to the 
rest of the world. I have with me a chart, and some of my colleagues 
have seen this chart, and I apologize, it is a little hard to read for 
the Members who are watching in their offices on C-SPAN, but what it 
really shows us are 10 of the most commonly prescribed drugs that I and 
my staff purchased when we were in Germany about 2 months ago at the 
Munich Airport Pharmacy, and then a comparison of what those drugs sell 
for here in the United States.
  Let me just read for my colleagues what some of those prices are. 
Cipro, a drug that we learned a lot about when we had anthrax here in 
the Capitol complex, is a very effective antibiotic, made by a company 
called Bayer. They also make aspirin and a lot of other drugs. The 
price in Germany for 10 tablets, 250 milligrams: $35.12. That same 
Cipro here in the United States: $55.05.
  A drug that my father takes, Coumadin, is a blood thinner. Some of my 
colleagues say, well, we cannot open up markets because people might 
get rat poisoning. Mr. Speaker, Coumadin is rat poisoning. It was 
developed at the University of Wisconsin veterinary schools, and it 
sells under the generic name of Warfarin. But Coumadin in the United 
States, and my father takes it, the price for 100 tablets, 5 milligrams 
in the United States: $89.95. In Germany you can buy that same Coumadin 
for $21.
  Glucophage is a very commonly prescribed drug for people who have 
borderline diabetes. In the United States the price is $29.95 for 30 
tablets. In Germany we bought that drug for $5.
  Another drug that we paid for, the taxpayers, you paid for this drug, 
Tamoxifen, a very amazing anti-breast-cancer drug, we paid about, I 
think the number was over $500 million through the NIH to develop and 
take the drug through phase 2 trials. We pay in the United States $360. 
They buy that drug in Germany for 60 bucks. Now, we paid for the 
development, and now, apparently, we are paying for the marketing, the 
advertising and, ultimately, for the profit on that drug.
  The bottom line is these 10 drugs bought in Munich, Germany, the 
total price in dollars: $373.30. Those same drugs bought here in the 
United States: $1,039.65.
  My colleagues do not have to take my word for it. Today, like 
Diogenes, I finally found an honest person inside the administration 
who will talk honestly about what we pay for drugs. She is an IG, an 
inspector general, in the Department of Health and Human Services. Her 
name is Dara Corrigan. She testified before the Committee on the Budget 
today. She said that Medicare last year spent about $8.2 billion on 
drugs, drugs that are administered in hospitals. She said, according to 
her research, that the Medicare people paid $1.9 billion more than they 
would have had to pay for the same drugs had they bought them through 
the VA.
  Now, I asked her, had they or anybody done any comparisons between 
how much Medicare is currently paying or will pay as we move down the 
road towards a prescription drug benefit under Medicare; how much would 
they pay if they could have bought those drugs from pharmacies right 
off the rack in Germany or Switzerland or some other industrialized 
country?
  The bottom line is this, I say to my colleagues: We need to do 
something about this, because it is not so much shame on the 
pharmaceutical industry, although it is hard for me to defend this. I 
am a Republican; I believe that profit is a good word. But profiteering 
is a bad word, and somehow we have to come to grips and create a market 
environment so that we have competitive prices, because Americans 
deserve world-class drugs, but they deserve to be able to buy those 
drugs at world-market prices.
  So my answer may not be the best answer, but at least it is an 
answer: to bring an element of competition, competitive tension, into 
the prices that we pay relative to the rest of the world.
  I believe that Americans should pay their fair share of the cost of 
research, and I am proud of the fact that we do pay our fair share. In 
fact, I think we ought to be able to subsidize, we ought to be willing 
to subsidize the people in sub-Saharan Africa, but I do not think we 
ought to have to subsidize the starving Swiss.
  This is not just about economics, it is not just about the prices we 
pay. There is a moral undertone to this. I think, I say to my 
colleagues, it is time for us to take a very clear stand. The rumor is 
we may actually get a vote on this in the next week or 10 days. When we 
do, we are going to be asked, will we stand with the large 
pharmaceutical companies, or will we stand with our consumers? I hope 
we will give the right answer.

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