Bill Clinton: “First of all, let me explain what he was talking about to the rest of you. The pharmaceutical industry in America is…”

“First of all, let me explain what he was talking about to the rest of you. The pharmaceutical industry in America is very important to all of us, not only because we want to get the best in emerging prescription drugs, it's also a big part of our high-tech economy. We have clearly the dominant pharmaceutical industry in the world. It provides enormous numbers of jobs in America and helps us to sell our products overseas. As you know, all around the world, sometimes you can sell products in other countries quicker than you can here because of the Government regulation, which I'm trying to speed up. Under the health care plan as it is presented, a committee would be able to decide whether or not the price of a given drug was excessive. The reason that provision was put in there is because there are so many drugs that are made in America, where Americans have paid in all kinds of ways for the research to be done, which costs much less in other countries than they do in America. What the pharmaceutical industry, however, is legitimately concerned about is that they have to go out and raise huge amounts of money in the biotechnology area to raise money to develop new ground-breaking drugs, and they believe those drugs ought to be able to charge for the enormous cost of their development in the first place, which I agree with. And what I think we have to do, sir, is to work that out. You know, last year the biotechnology industry asked me to give special incentives in terms of capital gains taxes for investment in that area. We did. I was trying to build them up, and I've been as disturbed as you have by what's happened to the markets. So what we have to do is enter into some sort of understanding so we can protect the right to develop and market new drugs. I'm very concerned about it myself. I do not want to do anything to hurt it. And it's a very important part of our economy. But let me also say that generally, pharmaceuticals will do well because so many more people are going to have drug coverage. That's why the Pharmacists Association strongly endorses our health plan. We can work this out. Mr. Anschutz. Let's move along now and get back to the satellites in Tulsa. Ms. Silvy. This woman has a question about Native American health care. Native American Health Care”