[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 158 (Tuesday, November 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H10318-H10319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MEDICARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. King of Iowa). 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 go and 
travel around the world to get their medications. Right now the 
Medicare conferees are trying to devise a drug benefit for seniors and 
for Medicare. Just yesterday, the Newark Star-Ledger reported a $400 
billion benefit would barely make a dent in the $2 trillion that 
seniors are expected to pay for prescription drugs over the next 
decade. Last week, Boston University came out with a study showing 
that, as constructed, the pharmaceutical companies would make $139 
billion in additional profit under this prescription drug bill.
  I know some very smart people wonder why the public gets cynical. Why 
would you be cynical about the fact that you would barely get a dent in 
the drug benefit for senior citizens, yet the pharmaceutical companies 
would walk out with $140 billion more money? I do not think the public 
is cynical at all. I think they are quite sophisticated. They do not 
think we are doing our work around here, and they have a good reason to 
think we are not doing our work around here. They are suffering under 
staggering increases in drug costs that are going up for seniors on 
average about 30 to 40 percent a year for the most important drugs that 
they need for their blood pressure, their heart, rheumatism, arthritis; 
yet we have a benefit that would accrue a greater benefit to the 
pharmaceutical companies than to the seniors.
  Some are now talking about capping, cutting the cost of Medicare 
growth, but refuse to take on the subject of making medications more 
affordable. Anybody who has been around there knows that the number one 
issue affecting our seniors is the affordability of prescription drugs. 
We are talking about cutting Medicare, we are talking about increasing 
the profits of pharmaceutical companies, we are talking about barely 
making a dent in the cost to seniors; yet we will not address the issue 
on the table that seniors are asking us to address, which is the issue 
of affordability where they one month to the next month see their drug 
prices go up 18, $19 for the same medication, and nothing different has 
happened.
  Pharmaceutical companies do a good thing. They come up with 
lifesaving drugs. I took some of those medications when I was in the 
hospital for 8 weeks. They do good work. They get rewarded handsomely. 
They get a tax credit on the front end for research and development. 
They have control over the patent laws affecting the pharmaceutical 
products. They have the taxpayers' funding, the National Institutes of 
Health, $10 billion a year on drugs and medications. I think the 
taxpayers have been unbelievably generous to a good industry, and I 
want them to develop new medications; but I want it at competitive 
prices. If we are about to expand Medicare to the tune of $400 billion, 
we owe the taxpayers the decency and the common courtesy to get them 
the best prices we can. Not the most expensive prices, the best prices.
  We have a proposal, 88 Republicans, 153 Democrats joined in a 
bipartisan fashion. Governors of both parties, mayors of both parties 
are looking at it, which is to open up the market, bring competition to 
the pricing of medications and bring that choice and availability to 
consumers. People today, 2 million Americans are going over the border, 
grandparents and grandfathers, to get the medications they need that 
are lifesaving medications. The system we have here where Americans now 
subsidize all the research and development of these lifesaving 
medications, we have the distinct honor to do what? To pay the most 
expensive prices in the world. As my great aunt used to say, Such a 
deal.
  We ask our elderly to pay premium prices when the poor starving 
French and Germans and Italians and Canadians and Dutch and British are 
paying 30 to 40 to 50 percent cheaper for cancer drugs, blood thinning 
drugs, heart drugs, rheumatism, arthritis, diabetic drugs. We funded 
the research to give them these lifesaving medications, and their 
government stood up for them and got them decent prices.
  What are we asking for? We are asking that our American consumers get 
the same competitive prices so you do not see the disparity when it 
comes to a pharmaceutical product for blood pressure. Americans are 
paying 50 percent more than the people in France or in Germany. And it 
is based on the free market. I have never seen so many protectionists 
on the Republican side in my life who refuse to accept the notion of 
the free market and the principle of the free market.
  In Illinois, my Governor did a study showing that of the $340 million 
we spend in the State of Illinois for pharmaceutical products for 
employees and retirees, the State of Illinois could save the consumers 
and the taxpayers $91 million. The New York Times noted of the study, 
not only could you save

[[Page H10319]]

$91 million, they noted that the Canadian system is far safer than the 
system we have here to guarantee the safety of the products sold. The 
issue is safety. When somebody tells you that it is about safety, it is 
not about money, folks, when they tell you it ain't about money, it is 
usually about money. That is the case. That is what we are dealing 
with. We are dealing with a product about money.
  The other day Eli Lilly, now that we have demystified the notion 
about safety, Eli Lilly's CEO said that the whole issue related to here 
is about having the research and development dollars. The taxpayers 
have been funding the research and development for the last 20 years. 
They have been quite generous.
  I would ask my colleagues and those who are meeting now in the 
conference to give the taxpayers and our grandparents a break, give 
them the medications they can afford rather than going into hock to try 
to do it and become drug runners and coyotes going over the border to 
get the medications they need to save their lives.

                          ____________________