Political Quotes

“we are about to take up the prescription drug bill, and a group of Democrats and Republicans have come together on an amendment to the legislation that is the free market prescription drug bill. It has three components. One is to bring generics to market so we can have competition between generics and name-brand drugs and force the prices down and make medications more affordable to more and more, not only of our elderly, but all consumers, and also help private businesses on their health care costs through their insurance policy. The second provision allows consumers and also the government and also the private sector to buy prescription drugs in anywhere of the 27 countries, be they Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, England. They allow it in Holland, where you can get competitive prices. Because today, in Germany, many of the name-brand drugs are 30, 40, 50 percent cheaper than they are here. And we can bring competition and the market forces to bear on the prices to make medications more affordable for our American consumers. The third provision is that the taxpayers have been funding research through the National Institutes of Health. The truth is the NIH is one of the largest venture funds in the world. Yet American taxpayers get no return on their investment through the NIH. All the cancer drugs, all the AIDS drugs, a great deal of the blood thinner drugs and medications, and arthritis drugs were funded through government research.”