On the recordJuly 15, 2002
I am confident that they do. They do, in fact, understand that. The evidence I would give for that is the largest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, has offered to seniors living under 200 percent of the poverty level, with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level, they have said that we will sell to you all of our drugs, which average in retail $61 or $62 a month; we will sell all of our drugs to you for $15 a month. That is a 75 percent discount; $61 and $62 drugs on average, all of them for $15 a month. How can they do that? Well, they will sell more medication. They will sell more drugs. We can bet that the cost of producing pills is a very, very small amount of the sale price. There is a lot that goes into research and development, no question. There is a lot, obviously, that goes into marketing. But the cost of production itself is a minor thing.
Source
govinfo.gov
