Sherrod Brown: “the prescription drug industry has come up with a new lobbying technique. Three weeks ago, the drug industry dumped…”

“the prescription drug industry has come up with a new lobbying technique. Three weeks ago, the drug industry dumped almost $3 million into a Republican fundraising event. Two weeks ago, in a party-line vote, the drug industry and Republicans pushed through a prescription drug Medicare privatization bill. Now the drug industry is pressuring medical schools and teaching hospitals and doctors to write Congress urging us to continue permitting drug companies to engage in anticompetitive behavior. They have convinced a few of these health care providers that unless the U.S. lets the drug industry keep competition out of the market, my colleagues guessed it, research and development will dry up. Fourteen years of patent-protection monopoly prices apparently is not enough. The same industry that consistently earns profits five points higher than other profitable industries argues that if they do not exploit America's seniors they cannot and will not do research and development. That excuse, Mr. Speaker, is wearing thin. Private and public resources for health care are not infinite. Drug companies continue to cheat American consumers, employer-sponsored health care plans and State governments and every other health care purchaser out of billions of dollars each year. Enough is enough.”