Chris Murphy: “So often people come to this Chamber and say the way we deal with health care costs is to change who pays. What we need…”

“So often people come to this Chamber and say the way we deal with health care costs is to change who pays. What we need to talk about is what we are paying for. The Department of Defense Extended Shelf Life Program evaluated over 312 drug products and found that even though they were given a date of shelf life, many of them maintain their stability, safety and potency up to as much as an additional 107 months past their expiration dates. For the $3.9 million the military spent on stability testing on expired drugs, it saved $263 million. These are savings worth exploring, and I would urge my colleagues to support careful scientific review of expiration dates for prescription drugs and ask if the savings gained by the military can be applied to general health care spending. My colleagues can learn more about these ideas for savings and health care by visiting my Web site at Murphy.house.gov and continue to change the way we look at health care to what we are paying for. ____________________”