Tim Ryan: “It cannot stand, man. It cannot stand. I totally agree with you. The fact that our friends, and can you imagine our…”

“It cannot stand, man. It cannot stand. I totally agree with you. The fact that our friends, and can you imagine our friends on the other side of the aisle, our Republican friends, who are deficit hawks, and they are still talking about it. It is hilarious to hear, Madam Speaker, the contradictory aspects of their words and their deeds. There is still a lot of talk about, you know, being a deficit hawk and balancing the budget. It was the Republican party, Madam Speaker, that started the Medicare prescription drug bill. They originally said it was $400 billion, then it was $700 billion, and then it was a trillion. And the night we voted on it at 3 in the morning, it was a $400 billion bill. That was a good deal. Then we find out months later it was actually a trillion dollars, and that the actuaries that knew it was going to cost a trillion dollars, they weren't allowed to tell anybody. So this Congress voted on legislation without all of the facts, and a major fact was the cost. But the point here is our friends not only passed that bill without telling us all of the information, they also put, as you said, a provision in there that explicitly would not allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate down drug prices on behalf of the Medicare recipients.”