Political Quotes

“I hear my friend from New Jersey, well, all of my friends from New Jersey. They are arguing on behalf of the drug industry. Here is what this is all about, as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) said. The drug industry funds a study. They do it through Tufts University. They find a professor at Tufts. This Dr. DiMasi has been doing these studies for the drug industry for several years. This is, I believe, his third study. After the study is done saying it costs $800 million, numbers just pulled from all over the place as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) proved in his comments, they get that study in a government report, and then that number gets all over the place to try to justify continued high drug prices, the kind of prices that the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and others on this floor have tried to do something about for several years. So when the industry does a study, then you put it in a government report, it simply does not make sense to do that for the public interest. {time} 1615 There is a lot at stake here. The industry uses that fabricated cost estimate to justify charging our constituents the highest prices in the world. Two, three, four times Americans pay what Canadians or French or Germans or Israelis or Japanese pay; prices that force way too many American seniors to choose between their medicine and food; prices that drive up employer-sponsored health care costs, making American companies less competitive.…”