Gilbert Gutknecht: “I think it will only make matters worse. If we were to pursue the Clinton-Gore formula, I think long term, it would…”

“I think it will only make matters worse. If we were to pursue the Clinton-Gore formula, I think long term, it would drive the price of drugs even higher, even though they are trying to impose a modified form of price controls. I think the gentleman's question is a good one. We have been aware of this for several years now, that there are huge differences between Canada and Mexico, Europe, Japan, and what we pay in the United States. Now, I want to come back to something that the good doctor said. He said, we subsidize the pharmaceutical industry in several ways. One, through what we do with the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. We spend about $18 billion a year in basic research, much of which ultimately benefits the pharmaceutical industry. We also subsidize them through the price that we pay for those drugs. But there is a very important component that we sometimes forget. We also subsidize basic research through the pharmaceutical industries with a very generous research and development tax credit. So they are really getting subsidies three different ways from the American consumers. Mr. Speaker, I am not here to beat up on the pharmaceutical industry. They have provided us with miracle drugs. We in the United States and people around the world live better and longer because of the pharmaceutical industry.”