[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 166 (Monday, November 17, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H11191-H11192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PHARMACEUTICAL PROMOTION AND PROFITS PROTECTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Christmas has come early for the 
pharmaceutical and insurance industries, and it is going to be 
presented as a very large and complex piece of legislation that as yet 
no rank and file Member of Congress, no Democrat on this side of the 
Hill, has been able to review, and it will be voted on later this week.
  It is being cast as simply a pharmaceutical benefit for seniors and 
some sort of a revision of Medicare to make it competitive and so on 
and so forth. But what it really is is legislation that was written by 
and for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, the most powerful 
lobbies in this country and the most generous of campaign contributors, 
particularly to the President and the Republican Party; and it is first 
and foremost designed to protect their profits. In fact, perhaps we 
should call it the ``Pharmaceutical Promotion and Profits Protection 
Act.'' That would be an apt title.
  Boston University School of Public Health has analyzed the bill and 
they said, 61 percent of the benefits will flow as increased profits to 
the pharmaceutical industry. The bill specifically prohibits the 
Government of the United States of America, on behalf of America's 
seniors and, indeed, all of the American people, to do anything to 
lower the extortionate price of prescription drugs in the United 
States. In fact, it closes the door on the importation of prescription 
drugs from Canada, which is the only relief that many Americans are 
able to find today. Oh, they say, well, we do not close the door; we 
are going to give the authority to the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services to certify whether or not American-manufactured, FDA-approved 
pharmaceuticals that have had a short vacation in Canada, where their 
price goes down by 50 percent or more, would be safe if they flowed 
back into the United States. And, of course, the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services, in his wisdom, has already said that he will not 
find them to be safe, just to reassure the industry. So they will give 
him a power which he will not use, or which he has already arbitrarily 
decided.
  In fact, it is arguable that the chain of custody of drugs in Canada 
is safer than in the United States of America, and it would be arguable 
that, in fact, those drugs would be safer than those that are sometimes 
made available in the system here because of unregulated, unlicensed 
pharmacies, and phoney, closed-door pharmacies and other things that 
were exposed recently in a series by the Washington Post. But 
nonetheless, we are going to act to protect here, and what we are 
really protecting, the Congress will vote, and I am sure the House will

[[Page H11192]]

vote; the President is proposing and the conference committee has 
proposed to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
  Then, not to leave out the insurance industry, because they are 
almost as generous in their campaign contributions, we are going to set 
up a new market for them where we will subsidize the private health 
insurance industry to create competition. Now, is that not ironic?

                              {time}  2030

  The only industry in the United States of America exempted from 
antitrust law, an industry which can, and does, legally fix prices, 
collude with their so-called competitors, and, you know, collude also 
to determine who they might cover or not cover, we are going to bring 
about competition by subsidizing them.
  There are quite a few seniors in my district that have a rather 
bitter taste in their mouths about the HMO Medicare+Choice and all 
these other foolhardy things that have been levied upon them. Those 
companies walked away one day and left them high and dry. And under 
this bill they will be able to walk away again and leave people high 
and dry or they will be able to choose the people they want to cover 
and tell the rest of them to go over to the Medicare fee-for-service 
plan which will be more expensive. It will get ever more expensive 
because all the low-risk people will be moved out and taken by the 
insurance industry and these subsidized plans until they become high 
risk, until they have to actually file a claim. That is the way the 
insurance industry works in America today: they will cover you until 
you ask them to cover something that you have been paying premiums for. 
And the next time renewal comes up, sorry, we will not renew you. This 
does not go on just in health care; it is going on in homeowners and 
car insurance and everything else. But it is particularly egregious in 
the area of health care. This bill is going to do nothing to rectify 
that problem.
  Let us look at what the great benefits will be. In the first year, 
next year, there will be discount cards that will come out before the 
election so the President can say he did something for people, which 
will be to give a discount, maybe as much as 15 to 25 percent. That 
means that seniors will only have to pay 50 to 75 percent more than 
they would have to pay for those drugs imported from Canada. Oh, what a 
benefit that is. No, but it is a wonderful windfall for the 
pharmaceutical industry. They will still be paying prices higher than 
people covered by other private insurance plans, as are Federal 
employees, as am I, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and many others; but they 
will get that juicy 15 to 25 percent discount.
  Then the big plan kicks in in 2007. Why 2007? Because people, if it 
went into effect sooner, if it was such a great deal, people might 
figure out what a turkey it is before the next election. So they will 
dangle it out there 4 years in the future and say this will be really 
great, you just wait. It is so complicated, few people can figure it 
out. But here are a couple of numbers. A person who pays $1,000 for 
pharmaceuticals under this great plan would only pay $945 for their 
pharmaceuticals after they did their premiums and co-payments and 
deductibles. They would get a benefit of $55 on an annual $1,000 
prescription drug benefit.
  Well, let us look at someone who has much bigger costs. Someone who 
pays $3,700, $300 a month. Their benefit would be a grand total of 
$855. Only about, you know, half of that they could get purchasing the 
drugs from Canada. This is a sham.

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