[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13073]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            CORPORATE GREED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Bush administration 
has close ties to industry is not, in and of itself, a problem. Part of 
the administration's job, to be sure, is to support American business 
as long as doing so coincides with what is best for the American people 
and does not compromise the principles and the values upon which this 
Nation was built. With the Bush administration, that is where the 
problem arises.
  The interests of the American people should outweigh the interests of 
individual industry. Too often, with this administration, industry 
prevails regardless of the impact on consumers. One of the most 
disturbing examples of priorities run amok is the administration's kid 
glove treatment of the pharmaceutical industry.
  Last year prescription drug costs increased in this country 17 
percent while the overall inflation rate was only 1.6 percent. Rising 
drug costs fueled double-digit increases in the health insurance 
premiums. Rising drug costs are putting State budgets in the red. 
Rising drug costs are bankrupting seniors on fixed incomes. Rising drug 
costs are costing American business literally billions of dollars.
  The Bush administration's response to this situation? Well, they 
spent the last couple of months putting together a study arguing that 
American consumers, get this, American consumers must continue to pay 
the highest prices of any country in the world for prescription drugs 
because, if we do not, medical research and development from the drug 
industry will dry up. The study is available at www.hhs.gov. I 
encourage every Member of Congress and every voter to read it. If my 
colleagues had any questions about how closely aligned this Republican 
administration is with the big drug companies, this study makes it 
clear they are in lock step.
  I wonder if it is any coincidence that this study came out of the 
Department of Health and Human Services planning office which is 
managed by a former employee of the drug industry. This study, which 
quotes drug industry-backed experts and trivializes the attempts of 
every other industrialized nation to secure lower drug prices, says 
that the best bet for American consumers is the status quo. We do not 
want to change. Drug prices keep going up.
  Private insurance strategies to reduce costs are okay, it says, but 
anything more aggressive than that will stop R&D in its tracks, the 
drug industry, I mean HHS, warns us.
  The drug industry does not mind private insurance strategies, because 
these strategies have not prevented double-digit increases in 
prescription drug spending, but if we go any farther, the drug 
industry, I mean the administration warns us we will be responsible for 
killing research and development.
  Drug makers topped all three measures of profitability for 2001, 
return investment, return equity, return on sales almost every year. By 
far the most profitable industry in America. They pay the lowest tax 
rate of any industry in America.
  The overall profits of Fortune 500 companies went down 53 percent in 
2001. Drug profits went up 33 percent in 2001. They spend twice as much 
on marketing as they do on research and development. U.S. tax dollars 
finance almost half the R&D through the National Institutes of Health 
in this country, but American consumers are thanked and should be 
grateful when they pay twice and three times and four times what 
prescription drug consumers in any other country in the world pay.
  Regardless of whether this administration thinks the cost control 
methods other countries have used are good or bad, how could it 
possibly be in America's seniors' interests, in American prescription 
drug users' interests for our administration to say to drug makers, as 
they said, price your products however you want, there is just nothing 
we can do about it?
  Congress today is debating competing drug coverage proposals. The 
Bush administration and the drug industry support the same proposal. 
They helped each other write it. It is the Republican bill, the one 
that forces seniors to go outside of Medicare to turn to prescription 
drug insurance HMOs to purchase private drug plans, the one that cuts 
costs not by bringing prices down but by offering the benefit that is 
only half as generous as Members of Congress receive.

                              {time}  1015

  That is the point. The drug benefit in the Republican plan is only 
half as good as the one that Members of Congress receive.
  The drug industry recently financed a $3 million ad campaign touting 
the Republican bill. The Bush administration recently released a study 
saying that the best seniors can hope for is the Republican bill, 
because the Federal Government would rather provide a bare-bones drug 
coverage than stand up to the drug industry and demand lower prices, 
something that Republicans will not do, something President Bush will 
not do, because the drug industry does not want them to do it. Where do 
the best interests of American consumers fit into this picture?

                          ____________________