[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 170 (Friday, November 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H12106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     BUSINESS WILL NOT ALLOW GOVERNMENT TO OPERATE LIKE A BUSINESS

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, very often when we go 
out and hold town hall meetings, people stand up in the town hall and 
say: Congressman, why do you not run the government more like a 
business?
  The answer is when we try to run the government like a business, 
business won't let us.
  If one is a Wal-Mart, they negotiate their pharmaceutical prices. 
They negotiate the prices of goods sold in their store.
  In one is a COSTCO, they negotiate pharmaceutical prices and people 
go to COSTCO to buy their pharmaceuticals.
  But if the government wants to negotiate the prices as the largest 
purchaser of pharmaceuticals in the world, we will not be allowed to 
because the Republican bill prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services from negotiating a better price for America's seniors and 
American families.
  We cannot run the Congress like a business when the businesses are 
all lobbying to keep a monopoly, to keep high prices, to keep people 
from going to Canada and getting FDA-approved drugs. That is what 
suppliers do. People go where there are lower prices. They can search 
the world over in the globalized economy for lower prices. But American 
seniors who need lifesaving drugs cannot search the world over for 
lower prices like the businesses can, because business will not let 
government run the government like a business.

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