Bart Stupak: “I certainly share the gentlewoman's sentiments. In September of 1998, we had the Committee on Government Reform also do…”

“I certainly share the gentlewoman's sentiments. In September of 1998, we had the Committee on Government Reform also do a study in my district, which as the gentlewoman said is the Upper Peninsula, Northern and lower Michigan. We found that the most favored customers and the big HMOs, those who have insurance coverage, pay about half of what an uninsured senior would have to pay for prescription drug coverage. Not only is there inherent discrimination here, where we make those who can least afford it pay the most because they do not have the purchasing power behind them of a big HMO or a big insurance company. What we have found also in further follow-up studies, and I know the gentlewoman has mentioned it tonight, in Mexico, Canada, the same drugs, the same companies, the same number of pills in that vial, and they pay 50 to 60 percent less. Our seniors go to Canada up in our neck of the woods, or if they are in the South, they go to Mexico and get it for half the price.”