Mike Braun

All we want as an alternative to certain death is a pathway that allows us access to these therapies at the point where safety and promising evidence and effectiveness have been established.

The Promising Pathway Act is a commonsense step to give the FDA the flexibility it needs to serve Americans with these most trying diseases.

That is why we need the formality of PPA.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My pleasure to introduce Dr. Peggy Plews-Ogan.

I want to recognize and thank each one of you that are here in the audience.

Would the Promising Pathways Act address that in a way that would be meaningful, so we at least keep businesses in business to try to work on these ailments?

These diseases are relentless. They are widespread and devastating.

Patients deserve a promising pathway at the FDA.

This is long overdue.

We should be that leading edge and we should have a system that accommodates it.

Since I've been here no one understands that in this institution. That is why we borrow aggressively for the latest and greatest political idea that you think might parlay into a solution.

The fact that we haven't done that in 20-some years makes this very much an academic discussion.

That's a calamity that will far swamp anything that we've been talking about here.

I think I can think of nothing more dangerous and disastrous for our near term and medium term energy outlook, and national security outlook than were we to effectively make peak supply real by banning investment in new oil and gas…

I'm a conservative that believes we need to be in the discussion of climate.

I have no question that those policies would be much more costly than any reasonable benefits we'd get in any other area, including climate policy.

We borrow now 30 cents on every dollar we spend. Just 5 years ago that was 20 cents.

I think offering a Medicare-X policy on the exchanges and allowing people... to shop and try to find the most economical plans, I think that would be a good thing.

When I put that into my insurance plan, costs started going down by 50 percent.

I think that is totally off base.

I'm simply asking for one thing. That is transparency throughout the system, like we have in all other markets.

Obamacare gave us, I think, some things that address the fact that everybody should have access.

I was finally sick and tired of hearing how lucky I was that my premiums are only going up 5 to 10 percent a year.

Unless we fix the underlying system, don't expect much to change regardless of what we do here.

In this country everybody ought to deserve good health and well-being, but we've got a monstrous system that we've evolved into.