Jeff Flake: “I am not supporting this bill because I believe that it will lower drug prices substantially in the long term. I do not…”

“I am not supporting this bill because I believe that it will lower drug prices substantially in the long term. I do not believe that it will. But what it will do is, as has been pointed out earlier tonight, it will force some of the other countries who have been freeloading off of us for far too long to pay some of the costs of R&D to develop these medicines for the future. That is important. I want to also read this. From ``The Wealth of Nations,'' Adam Smith addressed this issue. He said: ``To narrow competition can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax on the rest of their fellow citizens.'' The absurd tax has been paid by Americans for far too long. It ought to be shared by the rest of the world to pay for the cost of research and development.”