David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, I will certainly support this amendment, but I must say that I will be amused to see those persons in this…”

“Mr. Chairman, I will certainly support this amendment, but I must say that I will be amused to see those persons in this Chamber who will today vote for this amendment who just a short time ago voted to prevent us from being able to directly attack the problem of pricing for prescription drugs. The fact is if this amendment passes what we will be saying is that, for instance, American senior citizens will not have to worry about whether they are being penalized when they go to Canada to buy drugs that are cheaper than they would be if they bought the very same brand name product in the United States. To me, if this House wants to do something really significant, it would pass the Allen bill, which would simply require that in addition to providing a prescription drug benefit for all seniors under Medicare, that it would also guarantee that Medicare would be able to assure that drug prices charged to Medicare and to senior citizens under Medicare would have to be at the same lower price that drug companies make available their products to their most favored volume customers. That is what we really ought to do.…”