Gilbert Gutknecht: “today I rise to speak again about an issue, that, as Members go back to their districts and have town hall meetings, I…”

“today I rise to speak again about an issue, that, as Members go back to their districts and have town hall meetings, I am certain they are going to hear about. The issue I want to talk about this afternoon is the issue of outrageously high drug prices that we pay in the United States, especially when we compare what Americans pay to what consumers around the rest of the world pay. What I have here is a chart, and our source is the Life Extension Network. They did research recently and compared the average prices for commonly prescribed drugs in the United States to what the average prices are in Europe. And it really is sobering. For example, Premarin is a commonly prescribed drug, the same drug made in the same plant under the same FDA approval, incidentally. In the United States, the average price is $14.98. For that exact same drug in the same quantity in Europe they pay $4.25. Coumadin is a drug that my dad takes; it is a blood thinner. In the United States, the average price is $30.25, but in Europe they pay only $2.85. And the list goes on.”