Political Quotes

“just last week the American Association of Retired Persons released a study showing that drug prices rose in the last year by nearly 4 percent in the first quarter of last year, putting us on target for what has happened in the last 5 years every year in a row where the price of prescription drugs have risen on average 17 percent each year compounded, growing the cost for our senior citizens, their families that help their grandparents and parents to afford their drugs. And now that we have a prescription drug bill, it is going to also cost our taxpayers continuously more and more money to try to pay for that medication. We have known for the last year prices were going to go up close to about 17 percent; the year before that, 19 percent; the year before that, 20 percent; and the year before that, 18 percent, drug prices had gone up. We passed a prescription drug bill to try to deal with what seniors have said is the number one issue that affected them and their pocketbooks, which is that they could not afford the medications they need that their doctors were prescribing. And let just take one step back. This Congress passed a prescription drug bill designed not with seniors in mind, but with HMOs and pharmaceutical companies.”