Political Quotes

“what is missing from the debate about Medicare this week is how to make medications more affordable at affordable prices and more accessible to all Americans of all ages. And this is not a partisan problem. It is an American problem. We have a bipartisan bill to use market forces to reduce prices, allow generics to come to market to compete against name-brand drugs, which would save $60 billion over the next 10 years. Another piece of our legislation uses market forces to allow consumers, businesses, Federal Government through Medicare to buy drugs in 27 countries, be they Germany, France, England, Italy, Canada, where prices are 40 to 50 percent cheaper. I have the full confidence through our market forces we can make medications cheaper, and I have the confidence and hope my colleagues have the confidence in market forces that they are able to do that. The third component would be to allow the NIH to recoup a 10 percent royalty on any drug developed with taxpayer resources. In the private sector, 30 percent is normally recouped on a rate of return. Ten percent for NIH funded research, all the cancer drugs, all the AIDS drugs on the market are developed with taxpayer return. We should no longer consider taxpayer research dumb money. We should recoup that money because the NIH is the largest venture capital fund out there, use market forces to reduce prices, make medications for all Americans more affordable.”