Political Quotes

“Should the American public, through its pricing system, free market pricing system of drugs, continue to subsidize the rest of the world in pharmaceutical research? If the answer is no, we need to state that. If the answer is, no, we don't want that to continue, we should come out in front and say: We are not going to let the United States consumer bear the brunt of researching new drugs. If that is what we want to do, we need to be very upfront about that. That may be a very legitimate position to take. I don't share that view. I don't believe that is the right thing for us to do. I don't think that moves this country forward. I don't think that keeps us on the cutting edge of an industry that is a world leader. If that is what this body wants, then we are going to make the short-term trade, and the underlying bill on generics is exactly in this direction. We are going to make the short-term trade. We will have to charge our consumers less, allow more generic drugs, allow reimportation of drugs, all of which will undermine and cut into the revenues and intellectual property of the pharmaceutical industry, which will subsequently reduce their ability to do research on drugs for the short-term gain of having cheaper prices on the drugs available today.”