Claire McCaskill

Her first allegiance is to the people of Maine and her second allegiance is to her fierce independence, and I am proud to serve with her.

It is imperative that we find out if that system is being taken advantage of by companies or individuals that seek deep profits while contributing little or nothing to advances in medical treatment.

I am confused a little bit about this restricting distribution to thwart generics.

What are you doing now, Dr. Kimberlin? What if you are presented--what if doctors call you from around the country because of your expertise?

It either comes back to the consumer or the taxpayer one way or the other.

The American pharmaceutical industry leads the world in innovation and we rightly prize a system that allows discovery of medicines that save and improve lives.

It would be important for this Committee, through this investigation, to ferret out from--did you say it was Walgreens that got this contract?

Are they trying to keep this away from companies that can figure out how to make the generic to compete with them?

It would seem to me that it would be important for us to determine whether or not this restriction has something to do with the safety of prescribing the drug...

I want to compliment the Chairman. I think this is--everyone gets a nervous when we take on subjects that could have broad economic impact in our country.

To me, there is a line at which these huge price increases on prescription drugs go from rewarding innovation to price gouging.

The facts that are underlying this hearing are so egregious that it is hard not to get emotional about it.

We need to know the real-life consequences to this behavior.

I found it ironic that the very person who is jeopardizing the lives of babies by hiking up the prices of the drug he has a monopoly on, wants to cast aspersions on Express Scripts trying to compound that drug.

I want to make sure those lessons get to Leavenworth.

I think the issue of contractors versus active military is something that we are struggling with in our military.

It's not that contractors are bad. It's not that contractors aren't needed.

The problem is, there's so little transparency that oversight is nearly impossible.

I mean, the cost-plus is, like, ridiculous.

There's a lot of argument, I think, that can be made that 'up-or-out' has really, in many ways, cannibalized our acquisitions processes.

If we are going to be a risk-free organization, I think defense is the wrong area to be in.

It seems to me embracing risk ought to be part of the equation.

But, the company is going to be around, whether it makes money or not.

Thank you, Chairman Portman, for holding this hearing, and thank you for the strong working relationship we have on this Committee.

According to her police report, another girl traveling with her during those months had died in her arms.