Political Quotes

“Senator Klobuchar has said it very well, and I want to pick up on her remarks. And we are here to reflect on the extraordinary achievement in the Inflation Reduction Act in order to provide for the first time a real measure of relief--a real measure of relief--for these staggering costs seniors and others pay for medicine in our country. And I am going to talk about the negotiation issue. And I want to say, this is just the next and essential piece of what we are doing to get relief for the consumer. For example, through most of the summer, I talked about the price-gouging penalty that we got in the law. And I see my friend Senator Stabenow, my colleague who has been my seatmate on the Finance Committee--we sure wish she wasn't retiring-- but the price-gouging penalty is the first such thing in Federal law. This is a penalty that it has imposed, as Senator Stabenow remembers, when drug companies hiked their prices over inflation. They have to pay a rebate to Medicare, which is used to lower the out-of-pocket costs for seniors. And Senator Stabenow and I have been out crunching the numbers on this issue. And one of the areas that we found is that these drugs, particularly those that are administered in a doctor's office, already are producing massive savings.…”