[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 5, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1754]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Davis of Kentucky.) 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 an 
issue that most Americans, particularly seniors, are more than aware 
of, and that is the high cost of prescription drugs, but, more 
importantly, the difference between what we pay in the United States 
and what people around the rest of the industrialized world pay for the 
same drugs. And what I have here with me tonight is a chart which shows 
prices of five of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, and 
what consumers pay for those drugs in London, and in Athens, and in the 
United States.
  And let us look at the first drug, Lipitor, 30 tablets, 10 
milligrams, and more importantly every single tablet of Lipitor is made 
in Ireland. Okay. So it is all imported somewhere.
  Lipitor in London, for 30 tablets, effectively a month's supply, is 
$40.88. In Athens it is $55.65. In the United States it is $76.41. And 
let me add that over the last year, we would have expected the prices, 
the differentials, to be diminished, because what we have seen is the 
decline in the American dollar of over 20 percent. But that is not 
really what has been happening. Let us look at some of the others.
  Nexium, $42.23 in London, $57 in Athens, but $138 in the United 
States. Prevacid, $32 in London, $39 in Athens, $139.15 in the United 
States. If you take these drugs, Zoloft, Zyrtec, Prevacid, all of them, 
you add them up for a month's supply of those five drugs in London, 
$195.95 American; in Athens, $231.04 in American dollars. But here in 
United States, those five drugs total $507.96.
  Now, we have heard a lot of debate, and my colleague, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), just recently talked about Social 
Security, what we should or should not do about Social Security. 
Frankly I think we need to get serious about reforming Social Security, 
because I think the system is unfair to our kids.
  But the system that we have with Medicare and with prescription drugs 
is unfair to everybody. And while we have a problem coming out at us 
relative to the cost of Social Security and the generational unfairness 
that particularly our kids are going to face, the problem with Medicare 
is much larger.
  And unfortunately, in my view, a year ago we passed a bill. We were 
told that it would cost no more than $400 billion, which is still an 
enormous amount of money, to provide a prescription drug benefit under 
Medicare. Now we are told that the cost of that could be over a 
trillion dollars over the next 10 years. And that is only part of the 
bad news.
  I think even worse news is that every single penny of that new 
entitlement cost will have to be paid by our kids, because it will have 
to be borrowed. What we really need to do, one of my favorite 
Presidents was President Ronald Reagan, and he said it best: Markets 
are more powerful than armies. We need to use the magic of the 
marketplace to help bring down the cost of prescription drugs in the 
United States.
  The reason we see these big differences essentially is this: 
Americans are held captive. And if you have a captive market, there is 
no question that any free market company is going to use monopolistic 
practices. The net result is Americans are paying two to three times 
more for many of the drugs that they have to take to save their lives. 
This is wrong, and we can do something about it.
  Many of my colleagues say, well, shame on the pharmaceutical 
industry. Well, they did not really make the rules. Now, they are 
certainly doing all they can to defend these rules that hold Americans 
captive, but this year Americans will spend over $200 billion on 
prescription drugs.
  Shame on us if we do not change the rules so that Americans have 
access to world-class drugs at world market prices. I am asking all of 
my colleagues to cosponsor the Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 
2005. We have over 70 sponsors now in the House; we have a growing list 
of sponsors in the Senate. You can get information on my Website at 
gil.house.gov.
  But really we should be willing to subsidize people in sub-Saharan 
Africa in terms of the cost of prescription drugs. We should not be 
required to subsidize the starving Swiss. Please join me in sponsoring 
the Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2005.

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