Roy Cooper: “Today's news revealed that that bait-and-switch provision that was in the Medicare drug bill would add $2 billion in…”

“Today's news revealed that that bait-and-switch provision that was in the Medicare drug bill would add $2 billion in additional profits to our drug companies this year. {time} 2015 Two billion, billion with a B as in boy, and that is all as a result of this sleight of hand that was engineered in part by the committee chairman who left public service to go almost immediately to represent special interests, and not just any special interests but the very drug manufacturers for whom he had just passed legislation. Think of $2 billion extra profits in one year as a result of this technical switch with a lot of seniors from Medicaid to Medicare, from a program that could negotiate for lower prices to a program that cannot, by law, negotiate for better prices. It is outrageous, and some of the money in that horribly expensive bill has gone not to help seniors get more affordable medicine but to line the pockets of major drug companies. We are all thankful for the life-saving discoveries they make. We are thankful for the research and development, but I am less thankful for the advertisement and TV ads where things like that are not helping create new medicines. They are more trying to make money off people's illnesses, and there has got be a better way.…”