[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H8261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SUPPORT LOWER PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES THROUGH FREE MARKET ACCESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, people from around the world come to 
America for their medical care, yet Americans are forced to travel the 
world for their medications. A recent Families USA study found that the 
prices of the 50 drugs most commonly used by seniors in America 
increased by an average of 3.5 times the rate of inflation over the 
past year. Between 2000 and 2003, seniors' expenditures on prescription 
drugs increased by 44 percent. For too long, seniors have been paying 
premium prices for the same prescription drugs that are available in 
Canada and European countries at 30, 40, 50 percent reductions.
  What we are proposing through the market access bill is allowing 
people here in the United States to buy medications in Canada and 
Europe, is free market competition, allowing the market to work. That 
competition will bring prices down in the United States and save our 
consumers and our taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars.
  We as public officials are entrusted by the American people to 
represent them. We are not entrusted to ensure that they pay the most 
expensive price, but get the best price for the medications they paid 
for the research on. A recent USA Today Gallup poll showed that 71 
percent of the American people showed support for allowing them to buy 
their medications in Canada or Europe.
  I stood just Sunday with the Governor of Illinois who announced that 
for the first State ever in the Union, that they will now study what 
would be the savings to the taxpayers of Illinois if the 230,000 
retirees and State employees would be allowed to buy their medications 
in Canada. In the last year, the cost to the State for prescription 
drugs increased by 15 percent. Illinois now spends $340 million a year 
for prescription drugs for their employees and retirees. It is 
projected in the Illinois budget that that will increase by 17 percent 
next year and another 15 percent the following year after that.
  There are early predictions of what the savings will be, but I will 
wait for that study to be produced. The Governor asked for two actions: 
a, report back in a period of time for the savings to the State, if 
there are any; and, b, if there are savings, to then open up the health 
care contracts that the State has for its employees and retirees so 
they can cover prescription drugs bought in Canada.
  That is the same program that the AARP does for its own seniors 
today. United Health covers 96,000 seniors who buy their medications in 
Canada and covers it with an insurance policy.
  Now, nobody believes that the AARP would risk the health and welfare 
of our grandparents. Now, if there is an ability for a State government 
to save $50 million to $60 million, rather than lay off teachers, 
rather than lay off police officers, rather than close prisons, I think 
they have an obligation to the taxpayers and to their employees to get 
them those savings.
  We too will face that choice. Just in July, prior to going home for 
the August recess, a bipartisan majority of the House Members came 
together and voted across party lines to allow market access, to allow 
Americans to buy the medications, the name-brand drugs that they need 
for cholesterol control, blood pressure control, arthritis, other types 
of medications, either in Canada or in Europe. That passed with an 
overwhelming majority. This is not a decision of Democrat versus 
Republican, or right versus left, but of right versus wrong. We can do 
better for the American people. We can give them the choice and the 
competition they deserve so that they can get the savings they deserve.
  The irony of all of this situation is that Americans pay 50 percent 
more for the medications that their colleagues in France, Germany, 
England, Italy, Ireland, and Canada pay.

                              {time}  2000

  And yet what is ironic is every cancer drug, every AIDS drug, every 
major medication in this country was developed by the taxpayer funded 
research through the tax credit research and development credit or 
through direct funding by the National Institutes of Health.
  The American taxpayers and consumers today are not only underwriting 
the research in this country, they are underwriting the profits of the 
American pharmaceutical companies. I have nothing against profits. I 
think they are a good thing. But they do not need to make up their 
profits in the United States from our seniors and our consumers when 
they can actually have the free market operate in the appropriate way 
so we can get the best price for our consumers and our seniors and for 
our taxpayers.
  As we embark on this largest expansion of an entitlement in over 40 
years, thinking of adding $400 billion to Medicare to cover a 
prescription drug plan, I think we owe the decency and respect to the 
taxpayers to ensure that we get them the best price, not the most 
expensive price for that $400 billion.
  Now, those medications exist out there. Today you take Tamoxifen, 
which is a major cancer fighting drug, it costs $360 million here in 
the United States. In Canada that same medication for the same amount 
cost $33. In Germany it cost $60. You can go drug by drug and there is 
a major 40 to 50 percent reduction.
  I would call on our colleague and I call on governors and mayors 
around the country to look at what we did in Illinois and see if you 
cannot save your taxpayers and your employees the cost that they need 
so we can plow that back into other health care coverage for the 
uninsured, to expanding our school, retaining our teachers, doing 
teacher training, and make sure that our police are on our street 
making them safe. Those are the right choices we owe to our employees, 
our consumers, and, most importantly, the taxpayers.

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