[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16137]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, what is missing from the debate about 
Medicare this week is how to make medications more affordable at 
affordable prices and more accessible to all Americans of all ages. And 
this is not a partisan problem. It is an American problem.
  We have a bipartisan bill to use market forces to reduce prices, 
allow generics to come to market to compete against name-brand drugs, 
which would save $60 billion over the next 10 years. Another piece of 
our legislation uses market forces to allow consumers, businesses, 
Federal Government through Medicare to buy drugs in 27 countries, be 
they Germany, France, England, Italy, Canada, where prices are 40 to 50 
percent cheaper.
  I have the full confidence through our market forces we can make 
medications cheaper, and I have the confidence and hope my colleagues 
have the confidence in market forces that they are able to do that.
  The third component would be to allow the NIH to recoup a 10 percent 
royalty on any drug developed with taxpayer resources. In the private 
sector, 30 percent is normally recouped on a rate of return. Ten 
percent for NIH funded research, all the cancer drugs, all the AIDS 
drugs on the market are developed with taxpayer return.
  We should no longer consider taxpayer research dumb money. We should 
recoup that money because the NIH is the largest venture capital fund 
out there, use market forces to reduce prices, make medications for all 
Americans more affordable.

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