Dennis Kucinich: “is the administration manipulating information to benefit the pharmaceutical industry? Is the economic report of the…”

“is the administration manipulating information to benefit the pharmaceutical industry? Is the economic report of the President? And in that economic report, the administration parrots Big Pharmaceuticals' claims that drug prices need to be so high because of the costs of continuing to develop innovative life-saving drugs. But this assumption is directly at odds with the assumption the administration made in its cost estimate of the new Medicare drug benefit. CMS assumed that escalating drug costs would slow because drug companies will be churning out fewer innovative drugs. Which is it? If the drug industry is spending big on the next generation of innovative drugs, then projected costs of the Medicare drug benefit will be higher than the administration estimates. Then again, if the drug industry is not, in fact, spending big on innovative research, then the high prices charged by Big PhRMA amount to price gouging, plain and simple. I urge support for the Brown amendment.”