Political Quotes

“just yesterday in USA Today they ran a story, ``Once Just a Trickle, Canada's Rx drugs pouring into the United States'' and predicting that it is now coming close to $1 billion worth of business where people are buying their medications, name brand drugs, from Canada. And why? Because the same drugs that we have developed here, the name brand drugs, are in Canada for 40 to 50 percent cheaper than they are at our local pharmacy and drugstore. We cannot afford the drugs we need, and we are not doing enough here in Washington to help make that medication accessible. We passed a piece of legislation back in July with 88 Republican votes and 153 Democratic votes that brought competition and choice to the pricing of pharmaceutical medications. Today if one went to Europe and Canada for the same medications dealing with blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease, those medications are 40 or 50 percent cheaper than they are in the United States. Why? Because in those countries they have competition, and it makes the prices go down. If we brought competition and choice to the market, we could actually have the type of prices that are being afforded right now in both Canada and in Europe. A couple statistics that are so important that people should know, a recent Families USA study found that prices of the 50 drugs most commonly used by seniors increased by three and a half times the rate of inflation.”