[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10867-10868]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE COST OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 to talk about an issue that 
we are all painfully aware of and more and more of my colleagues are 
concerned about, and that we are going to have to deal with here in the 
next several days in the Congress, and that is the high cost of 
prescription drugs. I brought with me again this chart, and I would 
like to show to my colleagues what we are really talking about in terms 
of the prices that Americans pay relative to people in other parts of 
the world. These numbers are not my numbers. They were put together by 
a group called the Life Extension Foundation. I want to point out a 
couple that I find interesting.
  Glucophage, a very commonly prescribed drug for diabetes, one of the 
most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. In the United 
States, a 30-day supply, according to Life Extension Foundation, sells 
for about $124.65. That same drug made in the same FDA-approved 
facility in Europe sells for $22. $22. We are not talking about Mexico; 
we are talking about Europe.
  The list goes on and on, and, for example, tomorrow we are going to 
have a vote, I think, here on the floor of the House about trade, about 
trade promotion authority. We are going to give our negotiators a 
little more latitude in negotiating with the Senate. I happen to 
believe in trade. I believe in free and fair trade.
  But this is one area where American consumers could benefit 
enormously. Our estimates are if we simply opened up markets, allowed 
American consumers to prescription drugs at world market prices, we 
could save American consumers upwards of $60 billion a year; $60 
billion a year. Even here in Washington, that is real money.
  What does that mean to the average consumer? For example, my father 
takes a drug called Coumadin. The United States, the average price is 
$64.88. That is a interesting number in itself, because 2\1/2\ years 
ago when we started doing these charts, that price was not $64.88, it 
was $38. In just the last 2\1/2\ years, that drug, and nothing has 
happened, they have had no new FDA approval they have had to go 
through, as far as we know there has been no litigation, but the price 
of the drug has gone from $38 to $64, and, interestingly enough, in 
Germany you can buy that drug, the same drug, made in the same plant, 
for $15.80.
  How long? How long will we hold American consumers hostage? The time 
has come for Congress to take action. And I am here today not to say, 
shame on the pharmaceutical industry. They are doing what any 
capitalistic organization would do, and that is they are exploiting a 
market opportunity. And are they exploiting it big time.
  It is not shame on them, Mr. Speaker, it is shame on the FDA, and it 
is shame on us for allowing this to go on. And we cannot afford it. We 
simply cannot afford to continue to subsidize Europe and the Western 
nations.
  I believe that Americans should pay their fair share of the cost of 
developing these miracle drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has done 
some wonderful things for us, the American people, and the people of 
the world, and I think we ought to pay our fair share. But we subsidize 
those companies in several ways. We subsidies them through the research 
dollars we spend here in Washington through the NIH. It will be about 
$22 billion this year. We represent about 4 percent of the world's 
population. We represent 44 percent of the basic research dollars being 
spent, and that research is available to the pharmaceutical companies 
free of charge.
  We subsidize them through the Tax Code. When they do this research, 
when they invest that money that they say they spend in research, they 
get to write it off on their tax forms, and in some cases they get a 
tax credit, so there is no cost to these companies.
  Finally, we subsidize them in the prices we pay that are outrageously 
too high relative to the rest of the world.
  No, Mr. Speaker, I think we as Americans ought to pay our fair share, 
but I am unwilling to continue to subsidize the starving Swiss.
  We are going to have a big debate next week about prescription drugs 
and what we can do about it, and it is time we stepped to the plate and 
said there is one thing we can do right now with virtually no 
bureaucracy, with virtually no cost to the taxpayers, that will save 
American consumers upwards of $60 billion a year, and that is open the 
markets.
  If you believe in free markets, if you believe in NAFTA and GATT and 
TPA and all of that, if you really believe in free trade, then open up 
the markets, allow American consumers, working through their own 
pharmacists, that is my view, to go to markets, whether it be in 
Germany or Switzerland or Japan. For any FDA-approved drug in the 
United States made in an FDA-approved facility, you ought to have 
access to that no matter where it comes from. I will tell you what is 
going to happen. You are going to see the prices in the United States 
go down dramatically, and you will probably see prices in the other 
parts of the world go up a little but, but that is how markets work.
  One of my favorite Presidents was President Ronald Reagan, and he 
said something so powerful 30 years ago: Markets are more powerful than 
armies. You cannot hold back markets, and you cannot have a situation 
where the world's best consumers pay the world's highest prices.
  Not shame on the pharmaceutical industry, shame on us. We have a 
chance

[[Page 10868]]

next week to do something about it. I hope Members will join me.

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