On the recordMay 16, 2019
Again, I thank the Republican leader of the U.S. House for not only his leadership on this issue but on so many others, and for giving us clarity on what is really going on here. It is unfortunate. As The Washington Post and other news media organizations reported, it didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to be this way. We did pass the three drug reform bills unanimously out of the committee. I was a big supporter of them. Every Republican was. I think every Republican on the floor will be if they get a chance to vote for those. In the past, when I was chairman of the committee, we moved over 143 bills out of the committee. Ninety-three percent of them had bipartisan votes on the House floor. Fifty-seven became law. One of those 57 contained about 60 different opioid bills we rolled into just one. I agree with the leader. This is going to delay passage in the Senate because they are going to have to sort this out, rip it apart. The added spending and the navigator piece probably don't survive. But it didn't have to be that way. I found that if you have big bipartisan support out of the House, you are likely to get quicker action in the Senate, and it goes down to the President. If you want to do something quickly about high-cost drugs and stop bad behavior that denies access for new generics, then you want to move quickly, not slowly. You want to move in a bipartisan way, not a partisan way. Unfortunately, that is not our way today. Mr.…
