Joe Crowley: “earlier this year, working with the House Committee on Government Reform's minority office and the gentleman from…”

“earlier this year, working with the House Committee on Government Reform's minority office and the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and myself conducted a study of the cost that seniors in our congressional districts pay for their prescription drugs versus the cost paid by their counterparts in Canada and Mexico for the exact same drugs. Both the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I were startled by the results, to say the least. We found that seniors in our districts in New York pay, on average, 91 percent more than seniors in Canada and 89 percent more than seniors in Mexico for the exact same drugs; twice as much for the exact same drugs, same dosage, same in every way, expect price. We did not study arcane drugs not used in the real world to skew our data, but rather the 5 most popular prescription drugs sold to seniors in the U.S. today: Zocor, Prilosec, Procardia, Zoloft, and Norvasc. Let me put it in perspective. I have a constituent in Long Island City, New York who has to purchase 100 capsules of Prilosec every 3 months for his wife. He pays almost $400 for these drugs.”