[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14296-14297]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         REIMPORTATION OF DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, just last week the American Association of 
Retired Persons released a study showing that drug prices rose in the 
last year by nearly 4 percent in the first quarter of last year, 
putting us on target for what has happened in the last 5 years every 
year in a row where the price of prescription drugs have risen on 
average 17 percent each year compounded, growing the cost for our 
senior citizens, their families that help their grandparents and 
parents to afford their drugs. And now that we have a prescription drug 
bill, it is going to also cost our taxpayers continuously more and more 
money to try to pay for that medication.
  We have known for the last year prices were going to go up close to 
about 17 percent; the year before that, 19 percent; the year before 
that, 20 percent; and the year before that, 18 percent, drug prices had 
gone up. We passed a prescription drug bill to try to deal with what 
seniors have said is the number one issue that affected them and their 
pocketbooks, which is that

[[Page 14297]]

they could not afford the medications they need that their doctors were 
prescribing.
  And let just take one step back. This Congress passed a prescription 
drug bill designed not with seniors in mind, but with HMOs and 
pharmaceutical companies. Just take their discount card for a second: 
all this press around a discount card the government was going to 
offer, 17 different plans. Some drugs covered, other drugs not covered. 
And some drugs, when they are covered, could get dropped a week later 
and people are locked into that plan.
  Think about it. If one were designing a plan for senior citizens, if 
one were designing a plan for the customer, would they have designed 
that plan as is? No. The only reason that plan and the discount card 
was designed that way was because it was designed to help the 
pharmaceutical industry and the HMOs that had contributed over $250 
million in the last election cycle and hired over 900 lobbyists to 
lobby that bill. That bill was not designed with senior citizens in 
mind. It was not designed to try to save them money. That bill, that 
legislation and the discount card, was designed for the people who paid 
for it.
  We have a piece of legislation that was passed here in the House that 
dealt with allowing people to do what people have been doing and senior 
citizens have been doing for the last 10 years, to buy the prescription 
drugs they need from Canada and Europe where prices are 30 to 80 
percent cheaper than they are here in the United States, allowing, 
finally, the United States to have a free market where we have 
competition and prices come down due to competition.
  I did a study on my Web site from Costco, a discount retailer in my 
district and a discount retailer in Toronto, Costco to Costco, Chicago 
to Toronto; and the prescription drugs and medications at the Costco in 
Toronto are 40 to 60 percent cheaper than they are in Chicago, the same 
medications that we can find on the shelves in Costco in Chicago as on 
the shelves at Costco in Toronto. And why is that? They have lower 
prices there. And senior citizens, 1 million to 2 million a year, go 
over the border to buy their medications that their doctors prescribe 
in Canada, saving themselves thousands upon thousands of dollars.
  They can do it in Europe where they also provide medications. The 
same things, the same types of medications that our doctors prescribe 
here, they get at 50 percent cheaper.
  Why would we force our senior citizens into higher prices and our 
taxpayers to pay higher prices to support higher prices when we could 
allow the free market to finally operate?
  I understand why the pharmaceutical industry would pay about 200-
some-odd million dollars in the last year and would hire 900-plus 
lobbyists. They have got a sweet deal going. They should fight for the 
deal they got. But we here fought on behalf of the people who elected 
us. Eighty-eight Republicans and 153 Democrats in the House voted in 
favor of allowing reimportation, allowing people access to affordable 
medications at world-class prices because people from around the world 
come to America for their medical care; yet Americans are forced to go 
around the world for their medications. And we here in the House stood 
up to the special interests.
  Later this week, the other body is going to take up that legislation. 
Having failed to deal with the number one issue of price and 
affordability of prescription drugs, they are now going to take up what 
we here in the House have done, which is allowing people the access to 
medications in Canada and in Europe where prices are much cheaper for 
the same name-brand drugs, name-brand drugs that we find in the shelves 
over there in Canada that we find here, but 30 to 80 percent cheaper.
  They are going to take up that legislation because they now have 
spent months talking to constituents, doing town halls, and they have 
found out what senior citizens have been telling us for the last 6 
years: they cannot afford the medications that their doctors are 
prescribing. They are forced to pick between the medications and their 
food. They are forced to give up their month to allow their spouse to 
buy their medications. They are forced into cutting pills in half.
  It is time that we allow the free market to operate, bring 
competition to the pricing of prescription drugs and allow the prices 
to be driven down to world prices where they are 30 to 50 percent 
cheaper than they are here in the United States.

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