[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 21]
[House]
[Page 29108]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    PRESCRIPTION DRUG MARKET ACCESS

  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 will not take the whole 5 minutes. I 
have been listening to the discussions about Medicare reforms, and I 
must tell my colleagues that some of the arguments they are making on 
the other side, I agree with. Some of them, I do not agree with.
  I do want to let Members know that in first hour there will be a 
special order, and I invite Members from the Republican and Democrat 
and Independent parties to join us tonight and talk about the issue of 
market access because I think that is one thing that most Members here 
in the House agree on, and that is, that Americans deserve to have 
world class prices for world class drugs.
  As the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) was just saying, in the 
studies that he has done, in the studies that I have done, the studies 
that other Americans have done, that have been done by the press and 
other groups, they all come to the same conclusion; and that is that 
Americans pay by far and away the world's highest prices, even though 
we are the world's best customers.
  Later on tonight, we will be talking about that issue and whether or 
not there is a way that we, here in the House, can exercise the will of 
the people and get something done on that issue before we go home for 
the break.

                          ____________________