Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have seen this movie before. It was 4 years ago that a drug company in St. Louis raised the price dramatically on a drug that was administered to pregnant women, a shot they took once a week for 20 weeks that significantly reduced the incidents of low birth weight babies. Now we see a headline on the front page of the New York Times today which reads ``A Drug Company's Price Tactics Pinch Insurers and Consumers.'' Two weeks ago another New York Times headline read ``Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight.'' In April the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled ``Pharmaceutical Companies Buy Rivals' Drugs, Then Jack Up the Prices.'' The reporters who did the investigating in these articles all found the same thing: Pharmaceutical companies buy up the rights of older existing drugs where all the costs from research have been recouped and raise prices dramatically overnight. In its most recent article, the Times investigated Valeant Pharmaceuticals, a company that recently raised the cost of the lifesaving drug Cuprimine more than fivefold. The Times interviewed Mr. Bruce Mannes, a 68-year-old retired carpenter in Michigan who has relied on Cuprimine for 55 years to treat his Wilson's disease. In May Mr. Mannes was paying $366 a month for Cuprimine. Today he is forced to pay $1,800 a month just to stay alive. It is the same drug and the same dosage. It was $366 a month not too long ago. Today it is $1,800 a month just to stay alive.…”