[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18243-18244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak on another 
subject, but after listening to the Senator from Massachusetts I want 
to try to respond to some of the comments he made.
  There is no question that we have a health care crisis in this 
country. There is a great deal of disagreement as to why. There is no 
question that the issue is tremendously complicated and does not lend 
itself to a solution with a single silver bullet. I am interested at 
the suggestion that the silver bullet to solve the rising health care 
costs is to allow drug reimportation. We have had that suggestion made 
here this morning. I would like to talk about that for a moment.
  The evidence is that drug importation or reimportation, whichever 
phrase you choose, does not, in fact, produce major savings, except on 
an anecdotal basis; that is, one senior here or there might receive a 
significant benefit but overall the benefit of importation is very 
limited.
  A recent London School of Economics study shows that parallel trade 
in drugs in Europe where they have importation back and forth across 
the borders has resulted in a savings of less than 2 percent by 
consumers. A World Bank study found that parallel trade in Sweden cost 
consumers as much as it saved them after accounting for reshipping and 
repackaging costs as well as profits for the traders.
  So to stand here and say, whatever the decibel level, that we can 
somehow solve the problem if we just adopt the reimportation 
legislation that is being proposed is to go in the face of previous 
experience. I would be willing to adopt this just to prove the point if 
there were not a downside connected with it that our friends on the 
Democratic side do not talk about.
  I have a sister-in-law who is a very aggressive shopper. She is a 
senior. She is very familiar with the Internet. She makes sure she gets 
the best deal in every circumstance. She takes prescription drugs and 
gets on the Internet and discovers that she can find a price cheaper on 
the Internet, if she buys overseas, than the price she can get at her 
local druggist.
  She came to me and asked: Bob, is this a good idea? Now, I am not one 
of your constituents. I don't want a political answer. I am your 
sister-in-law who is trying to save money, and I want the truth. Is 
this a good idea for me to get my prescription drugs in Canada where 
the prices are so much lower?
  I said to her: Based on what I know, if you get on a bus or a plane 
and drive to Canada and walk into a Canadian drugstore and buy the 
goods over the counter, chances are you will get reliable drugs at a 
lower price, and that will be the thing for you to do. On the other 
hand, if you get on the Internet and order these drugs to be shipped to 
you across national boundaries, there is no guarantee whatever that the 
drugs you will get will be the drugs you think you are getting.
  Indeed, if we are going to talk anecdotal evidence, as we have been 
in the Senate, there are plenty of examples of people who have gotten 
on the Internet, gone to a Web site that appears to be in Canada, 
purchased drugs in Canada at a lower cost, and said to themselves: 
Aren't I a hero for being able to lower my drug costs so much.
  Then when the drugs arrived, they found that while they may have been 
transshipped from Canada, they were produced in Bangladesh or Nigeria 
or wherever else in the world. There is absolutely no guarantee the 
drugs they are buying at such attractive lower prices are, in fact, the 
drugs that are outlined on the label of the bottle or box they receive.
  Indeed, one of the interesting things that has started to happen is 
not only are we seeing degradation of the quality and accuracy of drugs 
being shipped across borders as a result of Internet sales, the 
Canadians themselves are beginning to lose control of the quality in 
their pharmacies. There are so many different sources of drugs now 
available

[[Page 18244]]

that even within the network of drug distribution points within Canada, 
they cannot be sure of the purity and state of their drugs.
  I am interested that there are those in the Senate who have said the 
drug companies are making enormous profits, and all we need to do is 
cut out those profits, lower the price of drugs, and everything will be 
fine, and at the same time they are insisting we have to have more 
research. What has lowered the cost of health care on a per person 
basis? It is the introduction of new wonder drugs. Where did the new 
wonder drugs come from? They do not come out of the air. They do not 
come as a result of Federal legislation. We cannot pass a bill in the 
Senate that says there will be a new drug that will solve this, that, 
or the other problem. Drugs come as a result of research.
  We talk about the profits of the drug companies. I am not here to 
carry any water for the drug companies, but I have been a businessman 
long enough to know that profits that show up on a balance sheet or a 
profit-and-loss statement do not automatically go immediately into the 
pockets of the Donald Trumps and the Warren Buffetts of the world. 
Profits get retained in companies. There is an accounting term for it 
called retained earnings.
  What do companies do with those retained earnings? They invest them 
in research. It takes roughly $1 billion to determine whether a new 
idea for a drug will produce a drug that works. A company has to have 
enough financial strength that it can put $1 billion into research to 
produce one drug.
  That is expensive enough. You can spend millions of dollars on a drug 
that does not work before you know it is not going to work. So the 
amount of profits they will make on the drugs that do work not only 
have to recover the cost that it took for the drug that does work, but 
it has to recover the millions again and again for the drugs that do 
not work.
  To suggest there is a silver bullet to the rising health care costs, 
and that the silver bullet can be found in beating up the drug 
companies and buying drugs from Canada, is to demonstrate vast 
ignorance of the way the free market really works.
  Let me make, again, the standard statement that I make over and over 
in the campaign. I am not questioning the patriotism of my friends 
across the aisle. I am questioning their wisdom and their judgment and 
their decisions, but I am not questioning their patriotism. We hear 
that over and over again.
  Finally, we hear the drug benefit that was passed in this body 
denigrated again and again on the Democratic side of the aisle, the do-
nothing program, the program that did not do anything for senior 
citizens, and the cry that has gone out to the point that I find many 
of my constituents believe this program is so complicated that nobody 
can figure it out, and nobody can get any benefit from it.
  Senator Hatch and I put together a series of town meetings across our 
State. We gathered seniors. We said: Here is how it works. We walked 
them through how to get on the Internet and order drugs. Then we said: 
If this is too complicated for you, you are not Internet friendly. Get 
your grandchild to get on the Internet, and they can make it work. If 
you do not have a grandchild who can make it work, call 1-800-Medicare, 
and the person who answers the phone will get on the Internet for you 
and make it work.
  We took seniors out of the audience, asked what drugs they are 
currently taking, then, on the Internet, we checked it. They came back 
and said: We are going to save 45 to 50 percent of our drug costs, and 
this was easy. This was simple.
  Talk about misleading the American people. Those who stand in the 
Senate at a high decibel rate attacking this bill are misleading the 
American people. Senator Hatch and I found with our constituents this 
program is easy to deal with. It will save up to half of your drug 
costs right now, and it is the law. You do not have to wait for an 
election or for an eruption to have this come to pass.
  I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will not be offended 
when I disagree with them when they say: The President has lied. The 
President has misled. That is election year rhetoric that we should 
learn to ignore, and spend our time on the reality, which is this 
Congress, under this President, has, in fact, done significant things. 
And if we will just level with the American people as to what we have 
done, they will find that it is easy to navigate, and it will produce 
significant financial benefit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah. His 
comments are right on. When I have an hour or two I will be happy to 
explain my strenuous opposition to this issue of importation of 
pharmaceuticals from countries that can very much harm our patients in 
America.

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