Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wanted to speak about an amendment which I intend to offer once we do get on this Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. This is an important amendment. I want to advise my colleagues and all who are listening about it so they can, hopefully, look into it and wind up supporting it. This is an amendment that Senator Vitter has worked with me on, as well as Senators Franken, Shaheen, Kohl, Tom Udall, Tim Johnson, Klobuchar, Merkley, Sanders, and Sherrod Brown. The amendment has the strong support of many organizations that are focused on the cost of prescription drugs. Here is a list: AARP, AFL CIO, Walmart, Families USA, Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, Consumers Union, Center for Medicare Advocacy, AFSME, National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices, the Alliance for Retired Americans, various other companies and organizations--the New Mexico Pharmacy Association strongly supports this legislation. This amendment addresses the root cause of anticompetitive, anticonsumer settlements that are entered into between brand-name and generic pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. The effect of these settlements they enter into is to delay timely access that consumers would have to generic drugs. This practice is commonly referred to as pay for delay. It costs American consumers and it costs the Federal Government billions of dollars each year in higher drug costs.…”