Gilbert Gutknecht: “I want to talk tonight about prescription drugs and, most importantly, about prescription drug prices. We have had some…”

“I want to talk tonight about prescription drugs and, most importantly, about prescription drug prices. We have had some discussion. The good news is, I think here in Washington, that there is a growing bipartisan feeling that we need to do something particularly for senior citizens about prescription drugs this year. The bad news is, it appears to me that we are going to continue just to throw good money after bad. I have a chart here that describes, I think, what is a big part of the problem we have with prescription drugs. These are some comparison prices for one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. It is a drug called Prilosec. They are currently running a pretty aggressive advertising campaign. It is the purple pill. If someone buys those purple pills in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and again these are not my numbers, these are from an HMO in my State called Health Partners, but they did some research and found if an individual buys a 30-day supply of Prilosec in Minneapolis, Minnesota, they pay $99.95. But if someone happens to be vacationing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and they take the same prescription into a pharmaceutical drugstore, they will pay $50.88. And, if someone happened to be vacationing in Guadalajara, Mexico, for exactly the same drug, made in exactly the same plant, under the exact same FDA approval, they would pay only $17.50.”