Robert Berry: “Absolutely. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, one of the interesting things is that analysts have looked at the…”

“Absolutely. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, one of the interesting things is that analysts have looked at the situation and they indicate that our people would use a lot more medicine if they could afford it, and that it actually would not damage the pharmaceutical companies' profits at all, that they would continue to be very successful. And we want them to be successful, but it all comes down to money. I think it is such an irresponsible thing to expect our seniors and to expect other Americans that have to take medicine to continue to pay two and three times as much for their medicine as anybody else in the world. I happened to be in Cuba about this time last year. We were there to meet with the ministers of the Cuban government to talk about them buying food from us, and also talk about buying our medicine. As we were beginning to conclude these talks, we said to them, ``You have said you want to buy our food, and we are pleased about that. We certainly want to sell it to you. Our farmers need the business. Our markets are in bad shape and we need your help, and you need our food. But you had not talked about medicine. Do you not want to buy our medicine?'' And they laughed a very cynical laugh and looked across the table at our delegation. They said, ``We can buy your medicine anyplace in the world cheaper than we can go buy it from you.”