[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 43 (Wednesday, April 13, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      RISING PHARMACEUTICAL PRICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Gutknecht) was up here a moment ago talking about the price of 
pharmaceutical products and how they have been rising and increasing 
and ever going up, three, four times the rate of inflation.
  There was this report done by AARP the other day that was covered in 
USA Today and on the news about how pharmaceutical prices had in the 
last year gone up close to about three times the rate of inflation.
  The truth is, over the last 5 or 6 years pharmaceutical products have 
gone up somewhere close to four times, three times the rate of 
inflation. And every one of us know people in our district who go to 
get their prescriptions filled. They got them last month or they got 
them 2 months ago, same pills, same amount of dosage, nothing 
different, and the price is up 40 bucks. And there is nothing to 
explain how that went up $40. And senior citizens who are on a fixed 
income, families who are on a fixed income and they have a sick child 
cannot afford a health care cost that is rising close to three times or 
four times the rate of inflation.
  Now, last Congress, Democrats and Republicans came together, not 
because it was a Democratic idea or not because it was a Republican 
idea, because it was the right idea, to offer reimportation of 
pharmaceutical products, allowing people to go to Canada and go to 
Europe to buy pharmaceutical products that are 50 percent cheaper than 
they are here in the United States, or go to England, go to Ireland.
  All over Europe and Canada the same drugs that we find on our shelves 
at our local pharmacy are 50 or 40 percent or 60 percent, depending on 
what you want, cheaper than they are here. I have on my Web site in my 
congressional office a Costco in Chicago and a Costco in Toronto. And 
the same Costco, we compared the same pharmaceutical products most used 
by senior citizens for arthritis, blood pressure, other types of 
medications they need. And the Costco in Canada offers, on average, 52 
percent savings for the same products that you could buy at Costco in 
Chicago.
  We are separated by a little over 200 miles. But they saved 50 
percent on their needs of their medications, whether it is Lipitor or 
other type of products. And why? Because it is the only product in this 
country that is a closed market, forcing American consumers to pay a 50 
percent premium for the products that their dollars spent paid for the 
research.
  We developed those drugs here in this country. We gave a tax credit 
to these companies to develop those pharmaceutical products, and we 
have the dubious honor to pay a 50 percent premium over Canada and 
Europe. So what has happened is that the American senior citizens, the 
American taxpayers, are subsidizing the poor, starving French and 
German and Swiss and Dutch. We have got to come to an end to this and 
allow people to have the access to the free market.
  We are going to negotiate and discuss China trade, other types of 
trade deals where everybody here is going to talk about free trade 
except for one product. What? Pharmaceutical products, the product on 
which the United States pays more than it does on television, more than 
it does on consumer electronics, more than it does on food, more than 
it does in other areas. Why? Because we have a closed market.
  What we are trying to do, Democrats and Republicans are trying to 
allow the principles of the free market to work, bringing competition 
and choice to bear. If you did that, then the American consumer and 
taxpayers would see a dramatic drop in their prices. And we are not 
being allowed to vote on that. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry 
is giving you the best government they can buy. They have stopped us 
and the ability to bring that vote. If we did, we would pass that vote 
here. We would pass it in the Senate.
  But the American people are on to what is happening. They know that 
we need to deal with this because we cannot continue to subsidize the 
rest of the world, both on the research side and on the price side; and 
that is what is happening.
  We know it is safe because over a million seniors a year go over the 
border to Canada. We turn them into illegal drug runners. Go over the 
border to Canada and a billion dollars worth of trade and get their 
pharmaceutical products, and not one of them has ever gotten sick.
  But what we are talking about is bringing Canadian cattle that we 
know is tainted, some of it, with mad cow disease. Now that we allow 
in. Accessing pharmaceutical products in Canada, Lipitor, other drugs 
on the Canadian market that is 50 percent cheaper, that is against the 
law. That policy has been brought to you by the United States 
government.
  It is time to allow Democrats and Republicans to come together to 
bring common sense policies and the principles in government to work. 
Principles in business, businesses always allow competition. They find 
the cheapest price they can. We can get cheap prices and stop having 
the taxpayer subsidize too high a price.
  My colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), and I 
have introduced this legislation. Other Democrats and Republicans are 
on it. And, again, it is not about politics. It is not about 
partisanship. In the last Congress, 88 Republicans and 153 Democrats 
came together, passed it, not once, not twice but three times. We will 
do it against this year.

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