Gus Bilirakis: “this dangerous bill is a legislative Trojan Horse that uses a promising veneer to hide dangerous realities. I do not…”

“this dangerous bill is a legislative Trojan Horse that uses a promising veneer to hide dangerous realities. I do not have the time to go into all of the reasons why I personally am opposing this legislation, but I want to remind my colleagues that a number of patient advocate organizations dedicated to the health and well-being of our constituents, including the ALS Association, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and the Friends of Cancer Research, and this long list here, and so many others that will not fit on this chart, are joining me in my opposition tonight. They, they consider the issue safety. They consider the issue safety. Also, the bill, in addition to the devastating impact on patient safety, would adversely affect the ability of our research-driven pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to develop breakthrough cures for a myriad of devastating diseases. Many of the solutions to high pharmaceutical prices have already been considered on this floor. They include a meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit and Hatch-Waxman reforms to ensure quicker access to less costly generic drugs. We also need to find a way to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance. In fact, I recently introduced a bill that would attempt to do just that. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill. It will do more harm than good. I urge my colleagues to do the responsible, the responsible and not the political thing, and that is to defeat H.R. 2427 tonight.”