Peter Welch

If you're going to do something where 160,000 people are going to have to leave their homes, and you feel some responsibility... you're going to make some arrangements.

We are seeing the creation of an unnecessary and total avoidable humanitarian disaster.

We should not be in as many of these long-term conflicts as possible.

Your country has suffered so much for so long, and our heart goes out to you.

This resolution really raises a question to each one of us who is a Member of Congress; and that question is: Do we believe in the separate, independent authority of the legislative branch to conduct oversight? The contents of this…

On the proposed bill, money that is saved, some of it will go back into scientific research at NIH.

I mean, certainty--there is certainty right now whatever price you want to charge, we'll pay.

It's going to crush everyone.

Do we need to have our Government play a role to protect consumers or maintain the status quo where we don't?

The price setting is being done by the pharma industry, because here is what's happened: We are here, in my view, because of egregious overreach by the pharmaceutical industry.

I am very interested in this cap that is contained within H.R. 3 with respect to the out-of-pocket costs that seniors would face

We are at this point, finally, because so many families out there are affected, and they've just had enough

The demand--the desire, the thirst for something real that could help families across the country--is beginning to overwhelm the inside game

Each pharma lobbyist is holding back 250,000 Americans

There are three Big Pharma lobbyists for every Member of Congress

That's kind of un-American, isn't it? We just say you can't negotiate.

Let's get into the details a little bit on this. Under current law, the Secretary of HHS is prohibited from interfering with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and prescription drug plan sponsors.

This committee has to make a very simple decision: Will our Government be an advocate on behalf of consumers and taxpayers?

I think we do have some organizations who are doing the very, very difficult kind of frontline work of reaching people in these groups and helping them leave the movement.

It's important to remember that the key thing people often are missing about this ideology is the critical piece of information about how a tiny fringe movement of people thinks they possibly can do what they've set out to do.

I think the other thing that's worth exploring is the public racial reconciliation process, which the United States has never undertaken in any major scale.

How? Just explain how that would work.

So it's really important to put this--to acknowledge that these acts are not just acts of hate; they're political acts intended to have a political effect.

Mr. Welch. Thank you.

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