Gilbert Gutknecht: “this afternoon and earlier in the Special Orders, our colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), talked about a…”

“this afternoon and earlier in the Special Orders, our colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), talked about a meeting that we had, a forum that we conducted today in Boston, Massachusetts. We had about seven or eight Members of the House, and we had a forum talking about the issue of prescription drugs and how much Americans pay for prescription drugs relative to what industrialized countries around the world pay for those same drugs. It was sort of appropriate that we had this forum in Boston; and I observed at the beginning of the meeting that a little over 200 years ago there were patriots who began to throw tea in Boston Harbor because a king in England had imposed a half-penny tax on tea, and they were mad as hell and they were not going to take it anymore. That same spirit of that Boston Tea Party was alive today and that spirit is growing. At that forum we had Governor Pawlenty of the State of Minnesota. I have to tell my colleagues I was so proud of him because he outlined the plan that he has for Minnesotans to allow them to have access to world-class drugs at world market prices. Now, he did not put a number on it, but my estimate is that Minnesotans will save at least $50 million by simply opening up markets as we do with virtually every other product.…”