Phil Gingrey: “I thank Dr. Murphy, and really among the many important points that you made, there is one that I would like to…”

“I thank Dr. Murphy, and really among the many important points that you made, there is one that I would like to elaborate on before turning to our next speaker, and that was this issue that Dr. Murphy mentioned in regard to seniors buying their drugs from Canada, and in some instances not knowing if they were actually coming from Canada. But I think all of our colleagues understand why they found the need to do that; and our colleague, well, three on our side of the aisle in particular, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), spent many hours in this Chamber during Special Orders, talking about the fact that seniors were having to pay so much more in this country for prescription drugs than they could get from north of our border. And in many instances, most instances, the exact same product safely packaged. And who could blame them because what has been happening, until we finally came forward and delivered on this promise after so many years of prior administrations and other leadership on the other side of the aisle and other Presidents, we finally delivered. This is what has happened. Let me just give a quick summary of some of this before we turn to my good friend from Texas. In Minnesota, while enrollment in the Medicare drug benefit rose by 9 percent last month, sales of low-cost Canadian drugs fell by 52 percent. Listen to what a State health official says in Minnesota.…”