Gilbert Gutknecht: “I just want to come back to one point because I think a lot of people may not have been paying attention. This study…”

“I just want to come back to one point because I think a lot of people may not have been paying attention. This study that we are talking about where we got the $800 million figure originally started with a study that was funded by pharmaceutical companies. That number then gets repeated by the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and we all believe that it is true. We have an independent research that was not financed by PhRMA. That was done by a professor who was at Princeton from New Jersey. More importantly, he was an adviser to this President on health policy. Let me add one other thing: He is a Republican. Now, this is, I think, far more credible than that number that keeps getting bantered around and bantered around. Bad numbers are worse than no numbers at all. This is the one way to say to the Council of Economic Advisers to the President of the United States they ought to be ashamed. Whether or not this amendment passes, the point, I think, is made: that if they are going to put information out to the President, out to the public, out to policymakers about important issues like this, they had better make sure that the facts are correct.”