[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 20, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3520-S3521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Prescription Drug Costs

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, now, back to my statement.
  I came to the floor and heard a speech by the Republican leader, 
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Now, it wasn't the first. I have heard 
many, and I listen closely so that I can divine the strategy of Senate 
Republicans. And for weeks we have heard speeches about the plight of 
American families dealing with inflation. It is a real problem. If you 
go to buy anything these days, you are shocked by the price, starting 
at the gas pump, if you have aspirations to buy a car or truck, 
ordinary food items--much more expensive. Most families are not seeing 
any increase in income so it is a real hardship for them to keep up.
  Well, the Senator from Kentucky has given that speech so many times, 
I could almost repeat it verbatim. And I don't quarrel with his 
premise. Inflation is painful for working families.
  But then--but then--he went into an area of pricing and took an 
exactly opposite point of view. What he said was he thought, if there 
was an effort to control the price of prescription drugs, it was 
``socialist price control,'' it was really asking for something for 
nothing, and he didn't support it.
  And I stopped to think for a second. Wait a minute. All the polling, 
when you ask American families what they worry about, tells you that 
this is a big headache for families. They go to a doctor. Somebody is 
sick. The doctor prescribes a drug. They take the prescription to the 
drug store. They get it filled. And then comes the moment of truth, the 
moment at the cash register when the family is told: Incidentally, that 
will cost you $100, $200, $300 over your insurance coverage.
  And you know what some families say?
  I wish I could afford that; I can't.
  And they don't pick up the drug or they pick it up and, instead of 
taking it, they kind of wait and say: I will see if I get any better by 
myself. They do the wrong thing because of the cost of prescription 
drugs.
  So when the Republican Senators come to the floor every day talking 
about family expenses, it comes as a shock to know that they are 
planning to oppose the Democratic effort to establish prescription drug 
pricing. They complain about high prices for everything else, but they 
don't seem to want to do anything when it comes to prescription drugs.
  Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, 
an average of nearly four times as much paid by an American family for 
exactly the same drugs that are being sold in Canada and Europe. Where 
are those drugs made? All made in the same place, all made by the same 
company, four times the cost for America.
  To add insult to injury, many of these prescription drugs only exist 
because of the successful investment by American taxpayers in the 
National Institutes of Health. The National Institutes of Health is an 
amazing research organization. They do the research, the basic 
research. The drug companies capitalize on it, make the drugs, and sell 
them at a profit. So taxpayers pay on the front end for the drugs. 
American taxpayers and tax-paying families pay on the back end for the 
actual cost of the pharmaceuticals.
  Out-of-control prescription costs aren't just hurting people 
financially; they hurt the health of Americans. One in five Americans 
don't take the medications as prescribed because they can't afford 
them. They cut their pills in half or they skip doses because they 
can't do it; they can't pay it.
  ``Your money or your life''--you expect to hear that from a stickup 
artist, not from a pharmaceutical company. That is the choice Americans 
face.
  So we want to do something about it. Democrats don't want to hear 
speeches about the costs to families. We want to do something. We want 
to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors first and then 
for families in general.

  If you really care about inflation, most families would say, start 
with prescription drugs. That is what we are doing. And the Republicans 
are going to oppose this.
  Ironically, Senator McConnell gives a speech calling it socialism to 
deal with the cost of prescription drugs, and, within an hour, the 
senior Senator from Iowa gives a speech on the floor of the Senate--
Republican Senator--how he wants to cut prescription drug prices for 
seniors. One of them didn't get the message at the caucus. I think the 
Senator from Iowa is right, incidentally.
  So Democrats are proposing to allow Medicare to negotiate fair prices 
for drugs. We have been doing that for a long time when it comes to the 
Veterans' Administration. The Veterans' Administration buys a lot of 
prescription drugs for our veterans--and I am glad they do--and they 
negotiate with these companies to get a fair price. We think Medicare 
ought to do the same thing. It reduces the cost of prescription drugs. 
It makes them more affordable for seniors.
  Now, a lot of people say: Well, if you do that, then the prescription 
drug companies, the pharmaceutical companies, just aren't going to be 
able to make it.
  Well, here is the reality. Studies have found that Big Pharma could 
lose $1 trillion in sales over the next decade and still remain the 
most profitable industry in America--lose $1 trillion in sales and 
still be the most profitable industry. Higher profit margins in pharma 
than in the telecom industry, than in the defense industry, in the 
banking industry, and the Republicans are saying they are afraid that 
they are going to get hurt if consumers can buy drugs at lower prices.
  But good news for those who fear that if you cut the amount of money 
going to pharma, it will cut research. That is not what we have 
learned. We know Bayer. It has been around a long time. It started off 
as a German company. It made aspirin. Now they have made some sizable 
acquisitions in the business.
  They make a drug called Xarelto. Now, you would have to watch that 
television ad 10 or 12 times to be able to spell ``Xarelto,'' but they 
are trying to convince American consumers they can't live without it. 
Bayer spent $18 billion on sales and marketing last year compared to $8 
billion on research for drugs.
  Johnson & Johnson: $22 billion on sales and marketing, $12 billion on 
research. GlaxoSmithKline: $15 billion on sales and marketing, $7 
billion on research.
  Get the pattern? There is more money being spent on advertising than 
on research for new drugs. Americans get bombarded with nine drug ads 
on TV every day telling them to ask their doctor for the newest wonder 
drug. There are only two nations on Earth where you can legally 
advertise prescription drugs on television. One, of course, is the 
United States. The other, for some reason, is New Zealand. Filling the 
airwaves with ads is what Big Pharma does to try to convince customers 
they can't live without their drugs.
  So the claim that allowing Medicare to negotiate a reasonable price 
for seniors will freeze out Big Pharma' s innovation just doesn't wash.
  Senator McConnell says there is no ``free lunch'' when it comes to 
prescription drug pricing. Let's keep in mind that the 14 largest drug 
corporations spent more on stock buybacks--lining the pockets of their 
CEOs--than on research and development over the past 5 years.
  So here is what it comes down to. Look at these, just as an 
illustration. I will do this quickly because Members are showing up to 
vote. Insulin, discovered by Canadian researchers at the beginning of 
the 20th century--they surrendered the patent for the drug for a dollar 
so that it would never be overcharged to consumers because it is a 
life-or-death drug for those suffering from diabetes.
  Take a look, from the year 2004 to the year 2022, at what has 
happened to the drug insulin cost--insulin cost--on a regular basis, 
the manufacturing price by year. You can see it tracks all the 
companies that make insulin. It is

[[Page S3521]]

as high as $300 a dose, and a person suffering from diabetes may need 
three doses a month--$900 for insulin.
  Well, let's take a comparative cost and take a look at what insulin 
costs in other countries. The United States, while it is paying $98 for 
a dose of insulin--look--Japan is paying $14; Canada, $12; Germany, 
$11; France, $9; UK, $7; Australia, $6, $7. And the good news is these 
are the same companies, the American companies, charging a fraction of 
the cost to the other countries for insulin. This is one of the drugs 
which we are working on now, Senator Shaheen and others, to bring down 
the cost.
  I am going to close by saying this. If you care about the costs that 
families face, if you care about inflation, and you care about life-or-
death medications, and you want to make them affordable, don't take the 
position of Senator McConnell that this is socialism to demand 
negotiation in pricing. Don't take his position that it is just a free 
lunch to say that people will never have to pay more than $2,000 a year 
out of pocket for drugs. This is a life-or-death decision. Even 70 
percent of Republicans agree with that.
  I wish the Senate Republicans would agree with it and join us in 
supporting this bill.