Tom Coburn: “Mr. Speakers, one of the ironic things about today's debate is the debate was about whose prescription drug bill would…”

“Mr. Speakers, one of the ironic things about today's debate is the debate was about whose prescription drug bill would do the problem. We had a debate about the wrong problem. The problem is the lack of price competition in the pharmaceutical industry. For if prices were not rising, seniors would not be screaming, and we would not be addressing this issue at all, putting the risk of the Medicare program and its viability in the future on the line. It is interesting to note that we have a President that is screaming for a prescription drug bill, and his own Justice Department will not even answer letters requesting an investigation into the antitrust activities of the pharmaceutical industry. It is interesting to note that politics has reigned supreme in the debate about pharmaceutical and Medicare drug benefit when, in fact, we can accomplish a limitation on advertising, we can accomplish setting in force of motion of the very administrative agencies that are already in place to assure the American people that we do not have monopolies and we do not have price gouging and we do not have price fixing. It is to be noted that the FTC has already received two consent decrees from two large pharmaceuticals manufacturers, one of which was paying $60 million a year to another pharmaceutical company not to bring a drug to market, consequently costing American consumers for $250 million for that drug alone.”