John Rice Carter: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I come before you today a very disappointed person; a disappointed Member…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I come before you today a very disappointed person; a disappointed Member of Congress; a disappointed pharmacist. I am disappointed that my Democratic colleagues have decided to prioritize politics over patients by packaging together bipartisan bills to lower drug costs with partisan bills to bail out ObamaCare. They are two completely different subjects. Republicans and Democrats have worked hard to create strong, bipartisan bills that will increase the amount of generic drugs entering the marketplace, bringing more affordable choices to patients. Now, House Democrats have chosen to use these bipartisan bills to pay for partisan ObamaCare bills. This bill includes major drug pricing proposals like the CREATES Act, and the pay for delay, which both seek to increase the ability of lower-cost generic drugs getting to the market quickly, providing patients with more affordable choices. We had long, hard-fought negotiations with our Democratic counterparts in multiple markups that ran until midnight over these two proposals, but we were eventually able to come to an agreement. The other drug-pricing bill in this package is a bill that I have worked on with my friend, Representative Schrader from Oregon, the BLOCKING Act. This bill mirrors the proposal from President Trump's budget proposal to keep bad actors from clogging up our generic drug pipeline. Hear me, Mr. Chair, and hear me clearly.…”