Steve Buyer: “It took me 3 years to redesign the pharmacy benefit of military health delivery system. As the only Member of this body…”

“It took me 3 years to redesign the pharmacy benefit of military health delivery system. As the only Member of this body in this Congress to offer a prescription drug bill that has been passed and signed into law, I want to share a few observations. Number one, I want to thank the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) because we worked in a bipartisan fashion, something that has not occurred here. Secondly, we were able to modernize a program without dulling the cutting edge of new prescription drugs. Missing from this debate is the celebration of capitalization, a free enterprise system that avails the great minds of the world, the incentives to form at-risk entities to push the bounds of modern medicine and pharmacology to the benefit of our people and the improvements in their quality of life. Please do not demonize these scientists and those in the medical community. Americans are living longer with many chronic illnesses. Why? Because modern medicine and the best health care system in the world is giving them that chance. Access to these drugs is what is important. That is what the Republican drug plan is going to do. Please vote for this bill.”