Jack Kingston: “I must say, in listening to the rhetoric here and the passion of my colleagues across the aisle, I am a little confused…”

“I must say, in listening to the rhetoric here and the passion of my colleagues across the aisle, I am a little confused, because they know that the language that is in the House bill is stronger and goes further than the original language offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and all the stuff that we passed on the floor. What we did in the House was we split the difference between the Jeffords language in the Senate and some of our House amendments. But as somebody who has worked for this language, I think this is good, and here is why. It brings down the cost of drugs by putting a needed element of competition into it. We, under this bill, say that individuals can buy their drugs on the Internet or go over to Canada or Mexico and buy American-manufactured drugs at a less expensive price and drug stores can reimport this. There are safety concerns, $23 million for the FDA. There are certain kinds of drugs that we cannot reimport. As far as the sunset provision goes, does anybody believe that in 5 years we are going to retract from this? This just gives time after the FDA works out the safety concerns for the thing to work and for Congress to come back at it.”