Tom Coburn: “What the Gore plan will do is cost shift the cost savings that might come about through Medicare on to the private…”

“What the Gore plan will do is cost shift the cost savings that might come about through Medicare on to the private sector, which will then raise everybody else's costs for prescription drugs. It will raise the State's cost in terms of Medicaid. It will raise the company's cost that pays for your insurance. If you pay your insurance yourself, it will raise. If you have no insurance, it will raise. The problem that we have today, the reason we are even addressing this issue, is because price has become predominant. We had a 17.4 percent rise in the cost of prescription drugs in this country last year, when inflation was under 3 percent. There has to be something wrong here, and I think the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) has a solution to that and has been very vocal on how we enhance competition in this country, and I would welcome him to the debate.”