[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 118 (Monday, July 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3321-S3322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Prescription Drug Costs

  Madam President, now, on a related matter, one of the things 
Washington Democrats appear most eager to do with their one-party 
control of government is to resurrect their war on America's world-
leading medical innovation sector. In a statement just last week, 
President Biden praised fellow Democrats for having ``beaten back'' the 
industry behind most of the world's lifesaving treatments and cures. 
And as things stand right now, it appears our colleagues intend to work 
from a familiar leftwing playbook in the coming weeks.
  Washington Democrats are working right now--right now--to find ways 
to put more bureaucracy between American patients and the treatments 
they rely on. They want to put socialist price controls between 
American innovators and new cures for debilitating diseases. With one-
party Democratic control of government, they just might get away with 
it. But our colleagues need to think again. Even just the medicine-
related parts of their partisan plans would have hugely, hugely 
negative consequences for our country.
  The American people know that government can't magically make things 
cost less by passing laws saying things should cost less. There is no 
Washington magic wand--trust me--or else we would have every American 
driving $1 pickup trucks and eating $1 steaks just by passing a law 
setting those prices at $1.
  There is no such thing as a free lunch. The bill for made-up price 
controls always comes due. In this case, the invoice will be delivered 
to the American people who are living with actual health challenges. 
The price of bigger government will be fewer lifesaving cures and less 
innovation in the future.
  Let's face it, prescription treatments are expensive to produce. 
Long-term investments in cutting-edge research and development require 
certainty. What Washington Democrats want to do right now would bleed 
hundreds of billions of dollars in potential R&D out of American 
industry, shrinking the pipeline for new therapeutics for patients with 
chronic conditions, pouring cold water on the next breakthroughs in the 
fight against Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
  Prescription drug socialism would have devastating and compounding 
effects. By one analysis, price controls like the ones Washington 
Democrats want to ram through could cost more than 330 million 
cumulative years of life expectancy. That is enough to shorten every 
American's life by a full year.
  Two years ago, in 2020, America's medical innovators were busy 
blowing away expectations and responding to a once-in-a-century 
pandemic with lifesaving therapeutics and vaccines in record time--
record time. Two years later, in 2022, Democrats have decided that what 
those same innovators need--the same innovators need--is heavyhanded 
Washington micromanagement from the same politicians who couldn't 
even--listen to this--couldn't even keep baby formula on store shelves.
  Our country is contending with historic inflation. Our economy is on 
the brink of recession. And Washington Democrats want to gamble with 
the health of the American people? It doesn't get much more reckless 
than that.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I wonder if Americans think the cost of 
prescription drugs are too high. I wonder if Americans realize that the 
cost of prescription drugs are so high in this country that they are 
driving the cost of health insurance premiums up.
  Don't take my word for it. BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois told me 
that directly. Why are premiums going up? Prescription drug prices are 
going up.
  I wonder if the American people realize there are only two nations on 
Earth that allow drug companies to advertise drugs on television. You 
know one of them: United States of America. The other: New Zealand. No 
other country allows them to take place.
  I wonder if the American people realize that the same exact American 
drugs that are sold here at the highest prices are sold at a deep 
discount in other countries: Canada. In Canada, the reason American 
drugs cost less than they do in America is because the Canadian people 
won't tolerate the prices pharmaceutical companies charge people in 
this country. So they established standards and cut the prices for the 
exact same drugs made, manufactured, and sold in the United States. 
They are not alone. Europe does the same thing, bringing down these 
prices.

  So we decided that at least in one area--one area--we were going to 
make an exception to this overpricing of prescription drugs: the 
Veterans' Administration. We said it costs a lot to keep our promise to 
veterans who have served this country and need medical care afterward. 
So we are going to allow the Veterans' Administration--we do under 
law--to negotiate with the drug companies to bring prices down. It 
works. They are brought down dramatically.
  For the longest time, many of us have thought that isn't enough 
because most of the drugs are being sold outside the Veterans' 
Administration, and there is no negotiation; it is a take-it-or-leave-
it. Medicare--tens of millions of Americans who are covered by Medicare 
face the cost of drugs which are sky-high.
  So we decided, on the Democratic side, that we were going to listen 
to the people we represent, who have told us over and over again that 
when it comes to the cost of living and expenses families face, many of 
these families were facing a choice of their money or their lives to 
buy drugs that doctors told them were essential for their survival. So 
we proposed that, finally, the pharmaceutical companies have to 
negotiate with the government when it comes to Medicare drug pricing.
  Now, you didn't hear that directly from the Senator from Kentucky who 
just spoke. He talked about socialism in pricing drugs. Socialism? For 
the government to suggest we want to bargain for prices? These 
companies, incidentally, are not getting by hand to mouth. They are 
doing quite well, and they are making a lot of money.
  And they didn't do it on their own. I want to address that issue, 
this notion that if they were paid less for their drugs, it would 
stifle innovation. The pharmaceutical industry typically spends more 
money on advertising than they do on research.
  Why would they do that? So that some people watching the ad of a 
person skipping through a field of flowers will finally get to the 
point where they can spell ``Xarelto'' and go into a doctor's office 
and say: I want to skip through flowers. I want Xarelto. And--you know 
what--some doctors say ``fine'' and write the script. That is why the 
cost of medicine and healthcare goes up.
  The bottom line is this. These pharmaceutical companies, as good as 
they are, as many things as they find, they don't do it alone. You know 
what the No. 1 supplier of research information is to the private 
sector pharmaceutical companies in America? The Federal Government. The 
National Institutes

[[Page S3322]]

of Health. We spend tens of billions of dollars each year doing basic 
research, which is then used by the pharmaceutical company to develop 
their drugs.
  Is it too much to ask them to bargain a fair price for drugs sold to 
Medicare so that the taxpayers get a break, and the pharmaceutical 
profits may go down just slightly? I don't think it is too much to ask.
  We are going to have an interesting debate in the next few weeks 
because the Democrats think it is time that pharma be held responsible 
for dramatically overcharging Americans for pharmaceutical drugs that 
cost a fraction of its price in Canada and Europe.
  The Senator from Kentucky obviously sees it another way. He thinks it 
is socialism. He calls it a free lunch--we want to give away a free 
lunch. It isn't a free lunch when you can't afford to fill your 
prescription the doctor gave you and you wonder if you are jeopardizing 
your health or your life.
  Take the drug insulin. We are working on that too. Insulin wasn't 
discovered by Americans; it was discovered by Canadians back in the 
early part of the 20th century. And they decided--and what a gesture it 
was--that they were going to give away and surrender the patent on this 
discovery.
  Before then, it was not atypical that people died from diabetes. 
After insulin, they could survive. It was a life and death drug. And 
the researchers who discovered it said: This shouldn't be a 
profitmaker; this should be something that is priced so that people can 
continue to live.
  Well, what has happened to insulin? Over the years, the 
pharmaceutical companies started doing their magic, and the cost of 
insulin for many people is dramatically higher than they can afford. 
Some people actually cut the amount of insulin which they are told to 
take because they can't afford it.
  We want to bring down the cost of this lifesaving drug to a $35 a 
month maximum premium for insulin, and I think that is a reasonable 
amount of money.
  So I believe that when it comes to the drug industry in America, it 
is a great sector of our economy. They have found some wonderful 
things, with the help of Federal research. They are making profits, as 
I guess every private sector company is designed to do. But it is not 
unreasonable for us to ask, it is not socialistic for us to ask, as 
American citizens, that they negotiate fair prices for all Americans. 
They do it for veterans. They can do it for Medicare and others.
  And if Senator McConnell is signaling we are in for a fight over this 
issue, all I have to say are three words: Bring it on. Bring it on. The 
American people are sick and tired of the overpricing of these drugs, 
and I think it is time that we have this debate. And if the Republicans 
want to stay on the side of pharma and say the Democrats are wrong, 
let's take that to the American people in November. I think it is a 
viable issue.