Political Quotes

“But the point here is that the bad news, by and large, is that those drugs that were developed at taxpayer expense were given over to the pharmaceutical industry with no assurance that American consumers would not be charged outrageously high prices. The pharmaceutical companies constitute the most profitable industry in America, yet while their profits sore, millions of Americans cannot afford the prescription drugs they desperately need because of the high prices they are forced to pay. That is bad. But what is even worse is that many of these same drugs were developed with taxpayer dollars. Imagine a situation where taxpayers contribute to develop a drug, and then the person who paid taxes to develop that drug cannot afford to buy it. That is an outrage. There are many crises in terms of the high cost of prescription drugs in this country. This amendment deals with one narrow aspect of that problem. If taxpayers in America are going to contribute billions to develop drugs, then when those drugs are marketed by the pharmaceutical industry they must be sold at a reasonable price; and that is what this amendment does.”