Political Quotes

“I speak as a Senator who is also a physician. In my medical practice, I have learned that if the patient has the power, then the patient can make the wisest decision both for her health and for her pocketbook. I am here to support the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act, which is legislation that has been put forward by my colleagues Senators Collins and McCaskill and which I am privileged to cosponsor. Right now, our healthcare system is designed, if you will, to shake as much money as possible out of the patient and out of the taxpayer-- all to the benefit of others but not to the patient and not to the taxpayer. One of the most egregious examples is the pharmacy gag clause. With a pharmacy gag clause, when at the pharmacy, if it will be cheaper for you to pay cash for the drug as opposed to through your insurance deductible, the pharmacist, through his contract, may be restricted from telling you that. If the pharmacist does tell you that, the pharmacist will lose his contract with the pharmacy benefit manager. So you will pay more by paying your insurance deductible instead of less by paying cash for the drug. That money is taken away from you and is given to the pharmacy benefit manager. That is wrong. This bill, the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act, gives that power to the pharmacists and to the patients to come up with a solution that will be best for the patients' health and their pocketbooks. By the way, it does more than that.…”