Sherrod Brown: “sometimes I wonder whether the Republican leadership of this Congress reports to the public or to the prescription drug…”

“sometimes I wonder whether the Republican leadership of this Congress reports to the public or to the prescription drug industry. The public sends a clear message that they are sick of unjustifiably high and blatantly discriminatory prescription drug prices. Seniors are particularly vulnerable to overwhelming prescription drug expenses. Democrats offer a proposal featuring an optional Medicare drug benefit, drug prices discounted to reflect a collective bargaining power of 39 million Medicare beneficiaries, and a strategy for undercutting international price discrimination, the ability to reimport prescription drugs. Republicans refuse to even consider price discounts for seniors, they emasculate the reimportation proposal, and then they sunset those weak provisions before they even have a chance to kick in. A phony watered-down drug reimportation bill is marginally better than no bill at all, but I do not want a single American to be fooled into thinking that Republican leadership has been responsive to the prescription drug crisis. The only constituency they have been responsive to is the prescription drug industry.”