Gilbert Gutknecht: “once again I rise to talk about an issue that altogether too many Americans know more about than perhaps some folks here…”

“once again I rise to talk about an issue that altogether too many Americans know more about than perhaps some folks here in Washington, and that is the almost inexcusable high prices for prescription drugs here in the United States. The more we learn about this subject, the more frustrating it becomes, because what we have learned over the last 5 or 6 years is it is not just that Americans pay high prices for prescription drugs; it is that people in industrialized countries like Germany and France and Switzerland pay so much less than we do. What I have here is a chart, and I know these letters are almost too small to see on the television cameras, but let me point out a couple of the numbers. This is a chart of comparative prices that we got from a pharmacy in Frankfurt, Germany, called Metropolitan Pharmacy; and then we got prices from a local pharmacy in Rochester, Minnesota, for exactly the same drugs made in the same plants under the same FDA approval. What we see are some amazing differences. Look at, for example, the drug Nexium, 30 tablets, 20 milligrams. In Germany, you can walk in with a prescription and buy that drug at the Metropolitan Pharmacy for $60.25. That exact same drug in Rochester, Minnesota, will cost you $145.33. Let me just say that prices do vary from pharmacy to pharmacy; but I would guarantee that here in Washington, D.C., the price would probably be at least $145.33. Let us take the drug Zocor, 30 tablets, 10 milligrams.…”