Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this summer, while American families enjoyed time away from work and from school, the big pharmaceutical companies revved up their influence machine to dismantle bipartisan legislation aimed at bringing down prescription drug costs. In July, the Senate Finance Committee, on which I am the ranking Democrat, passed legislation that constitutes the most serious and the most significant bipartisan effort in recent memory to lower drug prices. It is the result of months and months of work by Members on both sides. With respect to Chairman Grassley he and I worked literally every single day for 6 months with our colleagues to try to bring together this bipartisan package. Now the big pharmaceutical companies want to shred the bipartisan Finance Committee bill into confetti. The bill has two particularly important proposals. First, it has an out-of-pocket cap in Medicare that is going to save senior citizens $27 billion in the next decade. It will end the era when prescription drugs forced senior citizens into bankruptcy. The second key proposal is the one that really has Big Pharma mobilizing their lobbyist armies. It is a provision that stipulates that if big pharmaceutical companies are engaged in price gouging-- engaged in price gouging--they are going to face consequences. They are going to be able to set the prices, but if they price gouge, the taxpayer is not going to funnel up unlimited subsidies any longer.…”