Frank Pallone

The facts beg to differ.

It is this committee's job to understand the negative consequences patients are facing under the Affordable Care Act.

Let me echo what you said about the hearing and the value of it. I totally agree.

And the problem I have is if we grant exclusivity, we are essentially giving the pharmaceutical free rein to charge whatever it wants during that time period.

There clearly needs to be some balance between the exclusivity and the cost savings.

I seriously question whether a lengthy exclusivity will achieve the kind of savings we all hope to see.

I share your concern about the seemingly ever increasing cost of drugs and its impact on both patients and on the health care system as a whole.

I believe that there are many factors to encouraging and ensuring robust investment in medicines.

As Members of Congress, we typically speak about treating disease in sound bites.

I think we have seen recently that is not a safe assumption to make.

Cures and cutting-edge medicines are of no value if their high costs put them out of reach of the patients who need them.

We need to address this problem.

I do think that is important to have but, I mean, it is always going to be individual case too, though, obviously.

We believe, and we have made a recommendation along these lines, you can take the elements from that instrument...

For many years, there has been a lot of discussion about how we move our health care system into one of quality and efficiency.

I am amazed by how much variation exists in the care provided in the post-acute setting.

I would encourage them to do what they can to support that.

The purpose of the breakthrough therapy designation was to, as you say, Mr. Pallone, too, advance and give the flexibility for FDA to respond to the current state of science

If we are going to have a comprehensive discussion about how to promote innovation and medical advancements, we can't simply focus on the FDA.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan way to ensure that promising new medicines get to patients in a timely manner, and they are safe and effective.

We all agree that the Federal Government and Congress can play a role to help accelerate the discovery, development and delivery of promising new treatments to patients.

It is important for people like you to speak out about when the healthcare system works for them and when it doesn't.

This outdated language says that patients can only receive care if they are in a rural area presenting from a clinical site.

Ultimately, the issue of licensure will need to be addressed if we are to allow telehealth to reach its full potential.

I strongly believe as policymakers we need to be actively working to leverage technology to lower costs, increase access, and improve quality of care.