Todd Tiahrt: “to illustrate the transparency that we have been talking about and what impact it has and the free market on prices, we…”

“to illustrate the transparency that we have been talking about and what impact it has and the free market on prices, we have some places where you can buy drugs over the Internet and elsewhere and the prices they were on selected prescriptions. This chart that I am holding in my hand is based on prices as of May 4. We can see some of these red lines very clearly where they extend out here for about $1,400 per year is the cost of those prescriptions. After 1 week of having transparency and visibility in the marketplace, the shift is very dramatic. The same set of companies, Walgreen, Costco.com, drugstore.com, et cetera, what the free market has done is reduced the prices on the top line, which is the Primary Care Alliance, the costs were nearly $1,400. Now, because of transparency in the free market system, it is down to $1,000, a 40 percent reduction. We can see all of the costs are now coming into line, and that is the impact of transparency and the impact of the free market system. I think that what we can say safely is that when we have the ability for people to make market decisions, they will make good decisions. They will bring costs down. In this case, it is prescription drugs, but also it occurs in health care costs. I think that is very important.”