Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

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Mr. DOGGETT. I am.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, for many months now so many of us Democrats here in the House have been pleading with our Republican colleagues to recognize that there is a very serious cost to the American people of prescription price gouging; such a serious matter that, overwhelmingly, in the fall, when the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed healthcare concerns of Americans, the number one issue was soaring, unaffordable prescription drugs.

We have not been very successful in getting their attention on this just to recognize the severity of the problem--not even getting to the point of agreeing on what legislative action this Congress, this administration might take in order to address this problem.

We got another indication of the severity of the problem and the way that people across America are being impacted by the Republican failure to address prescription price gouging in the latest survey done this year by AARP, their RxPrice Watch report, which found the average retail price among 622 prescription medicines that are widely used by seniors more than doubled from less than $6,000 in 2006 to over $11,000 in 2013. That is an incredible increase.

It is not just seniors who are impacted, but working families, people all over the United States, by the fact that prescription drug prices are rising much faster than the cost of living and other health care.

Now, we have been asking for months that Republicans recognize the severity of this problem. I have asked in the Committee on Ways and Means. We cannot even get a hearing on the subject.

Our colleagues have asked, in the Commerce Committee, how about a hearing to look at what is happening to the American people on these outrageous prescription price increases that just keep increasing and increasing? The Commerce Committee has refused to hold a hearing on it.

The Committee on Appropriations has been asked to review and consider this problem. They won't hold a hearing on it.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings as the ranking Democrat, asked for a subpoena. Finally--and it is appropriate for this bill, they call it the SMARTER Act, and Republicans are always so much better at naming their legislation than what is in it--we had a smart aleck who got subpoenaed, the guy who thought it was okay to raise the price of an over 60-year-old drug by over 5,000 percent in 1 day, having a big impact on people who needed it for reduced immunity from any number of kinds of treatments, a 5,000 percent increase, and they at least were willing to get him over video to make his various smart-aleck remarks about his ability to do that.

Competition by itself is not solving the problem with the soaring cost of prescription drugs. But trying to maintain competition, if Republicans won't recognize how endangered so many Americans are by prescription price gouging, we ought not to go backwards, and that is what I fear this bill would do.

Let me give you a precise example. On November 18, the Federal Trade Commission, which would be impacted by this bill, approved a final order that was concerned with the merger on generic drugs that treat certain types of ulcers and thyroid conditions. This is the merger, an $8 billion merger between Endo International and Par Pharmaceuticals.

The FTC was concerned about the effect on competition and raising prices and gouging consumers even more than is occurring already. I do not want to impair in any way their ability to initiate litigation, to be involved, to see that competition remains--to the limited extent it is now--and not see seniors or working families with a sick child or anyone who gets a sad diagnosis of a life-threatening disease and then finds themselves facing financial ruin even if they have insurance, to see one of the few tools we have to deal with these anticompetitive provisions eliminated by this bill.

This is the last amendment on the bill. It will not send the bill back to committee. It will at least preserve this one narrow area. If Republicans won't recognize the problem, at least don't go make it worse.

They could be bringing up bills to this floor like the one that had bipartisan support about 8 or 9 years ago. Former Representative John Dingell had a bill so that we would begin to have Medicare negotiate prices with these pharmaceutical companies. Twenty-four Republicans even joined us. That is the kind of bipartisan action we need.

At least approve this motion to recommit. Let the bill move forward, but without gouging consumers on prescription drug prices even more than they are today.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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