Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act. I am delighted to have been asked to join with my colleagues Mr. Pallone and Chairman Scott in authoring this historic legislation. It delivers on a Democratic promise to meaningfully stabilize and lower the very high costs of prescription drugs in the United States. As a recent Ways and Means Committee report details, Americans pay, on average, four times more for the same prescription drugs as patients in other similarly developed countries. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 95 percent, believe this disparity is unacceptable. I certainly agree with them. H.R. 3 will level the playing field for patients and taxpayers by giving the Health and Human Services Secretary the power to negotiate better prescription drug prices in Medicare and throughout the private market. It also caps Medicare beneficiaries' out-of-pocket prescription drug spending at $2,000. According to CBO, H.R. 3 will save American taxpayers over $500 billion. We will vigorously reinvest these tremendous savings into unprecedented dental, vision, and hearing Medicare coverage expansions. These are benefits that are directly associated with positive short- and long-term health outcomes, and seniors deserve meaningful access to them. H.R. 3 also expands eligibility to low-income subsidy programs so that seniors can get help to lower their out-of-pocket costs.…”