Political Quotes

“as I said on this floor many times, the government shutdown had many victims: air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and many other public servants, and, of course, the American people themselves who were the most affected by this. Thankfully, the bill passed in this Chamber last week put that chaos behind us. But that wasn't all that it did. In some small way, the difficult time proved that we can work together to do tangible things to reduce healthcare costs in this country. As a matter of fact, I worked on a bipartisan basis to introduce the SMART OTC Act, which became law as part of the government reopening. It was a good part of that reopening. The bill aims to make lowering the cost of over-the-counter drugs more accessible to patients by eliminating the redtape at the FDA. We know that when you can take a prescription drug and make it an over-the-counter drug, prices go down. In fact, on average, in cases where we have been able to do this, it reduces prices from 30 to 95 percent. It was an important part of that provision and an example of a way, on a bipartisan basis, we can get some of these kinds of things done. It is an example of how we can attack affordability with commonsense reforms without adding the debt burden to future generations. I am proud to have worked on that bill to make things better for Ohioans and the entire country. But the shutdown is finally over.”