Sherrod Brown: “Mr. Speaker, sometimes I wonder whether the Republican leadership in this Congress reports to the Congress or reports to…”

“Mr. Speaker, sometimes I wonder whether the Republican leadership in this Congress reports to the Congress or reports to the prescription drug industry. The public is sending a clear message that they are sick of unjustifiably high and blatantly discriminatory prescription drug prices. Democrats offer a proposal featuring an optional Medicare drug benefit. The Democrats offer a proposal to discount drug prices using the collective bargaining power of 39 million Medicare beneficiaries. The Democrats offer a strategy for undercutting international price discrimination with the ability to reimport prescription drugs. Republicans refuse to even consider price discounts for seniors. They emasculate the reimportation proposal. Then they sunset this phoney bill before the provisions even have a chance to kick in. A watered down drug reimportation bill is marginally better than no bill at all; But, Mr. Speaker, I do not want a single American to be fooled into thinking the Republican leadership has been responsive to the prescription drug crisis. The only constituency that they have been responsive to is the prescription drug industry. Vote no on the rule.”