[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26000-26001]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, for some time, the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. 
Emerson), myself and a number of others, Congressmen from the Democrat 
side, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), our independent 
Congressman, have been working very hard to make sure that Americans do 
not pay any more for their pharmaceutical products than they do in 
other parts of the industrialized world.
  One of the things we found out when we were doing our investigation 
was that some of the pharmaceutical products that are sold in Canada 
sell for one-seventh or one-eighth or one-tenth of what they sell for 
in the United States. Tamoxifen, for instance, which is one of the 
drugs of choice for a woman who has breast cancer, costs seven times as 
much in the United States as it does Canada. That just is not right. 
Americans should not pay a disproportionate amount of the costs of 
research and development for a pharmaceutical product or advertising or 
anything else as they do in other parts of the world.
  Yet Americans are bearing an undue amount of the burden of producing 
these products. Toward that end, a number of us have been working to 
try to get that changed through reimportation of pharmaceutical 
products from Canada, from Germany, from Spain, from other 
industrialized nations so that Americans get the benefit of the lower 
prices. The prices of pharmaceuticals have been rising at about 15 
percent a year and Americans simply cannot afford that tremendous 
amount of increase year after year after year. We have seniors that are 
going to pharmacies with prescriptions saying, how much is it? If it is 
too much, they say, well, maybe I'll be back tomorrow. Or maybe they 
buy half a prescription and they split it in two, and that is not 
sufficient for the problems that they face. So we have been working on 
this.
  We now find that we have a lot of allies in the States around this 
country. Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, one of our former Democrat 
colleagues from the Congress, did some research and found out in the 
State of Illinois for State employees, the State would save $91 million 
a year in Illinois alone if they went to a reimportation plan. Today, 
Mayor Bloomberg of New York, a Republican, has said that he is going to 
look into this to try to do it to save money because New York is 
strapped for cash. The Governor of Minnesota, a Republican, has said 
that he is going to do it, and it is going to save tens of millions of 
dollars for the State of Minnesota. The Governor of Iowa is working on 
it. The mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts.
  Mayors in Vermont and across the country, Governors and mayors, are 
starting to realize that they are strapped for cash and need money to 
run their governments for fire protection, education, safety and other 
causes; and they need that money. They either raise it through taxes or 
find ways to economize in their States and cities. They have found they 
can save tens of millions of dollars across this country in each city 
and State by buying pharmaceutical products from outside the United 
States, the very same products that we buy here, made by the same 
manufacturers. There is no difference. The only difference is Americans 
pay six or seven times or as much as 10 times more than they do in 
other countries. That is not right.
  There is a groundswell of support to bring about positive change in 
the cost of pharmaceuticals across this Nation. It is a groundswell 
that is not going to stop.
  I would like to say to my friends in the pharmaceutical industry, it 
is time to sit down and reason with Members of Congress to try to find 
a solution to this problem rather than have Americans having to import 
the same products you are selling here in the United States from other 
countries. It makes no sense for you to sell them to Canada and for us 
to have to reimport them in order to save the taxpayers, the people of 
this country, millions of dollars and save the Governors and mayors of 
the States and cities of this country millions and maybe even billions 
of dollars. We spend over $200 billion a year for State and Federal 
employees for their pharmaceutical products, I understand; and it is 
estimated by experts we can save 30 percent, that is, $60 billion a 
year could be saved if we had a fair pricing like they do in Canada, 
Spain, Germany, and elsewhere. That could pay for the Medicare 
prescription drug program that we have all been talking about.
  We need to get with the program. The pharmaceutical industry needs to 
get with the program. We want them to make a profit. We want them to 
have money for research and development, and we want them to get their 
tax credits; but we do not want them to burden the American taxpayer 
with all of these expenses, and that is what is going to happen if we 
do not deal with this now.
  I would just like to say once again, Mr. Speaker, if anybody in the 
pharmaceutical industry is listening, we want to work with you to solve 
this problem; but one way or another, Americans are going to get a fair 
price for their pharmaceutical products. If we have to fight for 
reimportation, we will do it that way; or we will deal with you to do 
it a better way.

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