Amy Klobuchar: “I thank the Senator from Indiana for his words. We both are from States that have a lot of jobs involved in medical…”

“I thank the Senator from Indiana for his words. We both are from States that have a lot of jobs involved in medical devices, and, in fact, this bill is something we worked on very hard. I am the cochair of the medical device caucus in the Senate. This has been our top priority, to try to move those FDA rules along, and this bill does that. It is an agreement--a rare agreement--between government and industry, which is something both parties want. We would like to move those approvals along for the patients, long-suffering patients who should have access to medical devices, and then also for the industry, where we have seen way too much venture capital money go to places such as Europe simply because that process moves faster. So this is a very good bill, and I am so pleased we have bipartisan support. I see that the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, has come into the Chamber, and both he and Senator Harkin deserve a lot of praise. I wish to focus today on one piece of this bill, something I have worked very hard on, and it really came out of things I heard in my State, things I heard from pharmacists literally 2 years ago, things I have heard from patients. I got together with our staff. I see that our legislative director, Rose Baumann, and Andrew Hu, who did a lot of work on this bill, are here today. We went and talked to all kinds of people involved.…”