Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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

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Mr. DOGGETT. Strongly.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I offer this motion to recommit because Republicans have been motionless when it comes to acting on the spiraling drug prices that are harming so many Americans.

The willingness of this Congress to sit on its hands, stand idle in the face of the prescription price gouging that so many of our neighbors face, is nothing short of appalling, and there is nothing ``smarter'' in this bill about dealing with that terrible problem.

Of course, President Trump has told us it is going to be ``beautiful,'' but every time you turn around, he is cozying up with some pharmaceutical lobbyists that are raising prices and putting some of their people in charge of his drug agenda.

All that this motion does is to take the very modest step of reducing the possibility that, through further mergers of drug companies, we will see the sick and dying extorted even more than they are today with skyrocketing prices that are made even worse when these mergers occur.

If this motion passes, it won't kill the bill or slow it down a moment.

What it will do is to give life to an effort to contain these mergers and see that prescription prices don't soar even further. Yes, it is not the principal issue on drug prices. Unfortunately, there is no wonder drug to stop prescription price gouging, but this is one of the only ways to get the issue to the floor of this House because our Republican colleagues in every committee are determined to remain silent and see no action whatsoever.

I continue to hear from my neighbors back in Texas who care about this a lot more than my Republican colleagues. They tell me they cannot afford their prescriptions or they are burdened with immense debt to do it.

I think of Elaine in San Antonio, who has suffered with glaucoma for a number of years. She is fighting to save her eyesight, but now her copays on three different necessary drops are costing $400, $227, $178 per month. She says she wants to finish her senior years in dignity but is burdened down by these outrageous prices.

The choice should not be blindness or rent for a senior who has worked and saved all their lifetime.

Even in the face of the opioid epidemic, where we are about to hear about a whole lot of bills on the floor that don't do a whole lot, but in the face of that crisis, a devastating national public health emergency, the price of naloxone, a lifesaving overdose reversal drug, has been spiked by almost 600 percent.

Even an effective drug is 100 percent ineffective when it is unaffordable.

Too many drugs are ineffective for too many people because drug prices have soared at a rate of ten times the rate of inflation. But where some see a crisis like that, others see a revenue opportunity.

Brand name pharmaceutical manufacturers rely upon government-approved monopolies to charge monopoly prices, whatever they can get out of the sick and dying. They utilize as many maneuvers as possible to perpetuate their monopolies as long as possible while pouring their money, not into research and development of new drugs, but into lobbying this Congress and the administration.

Drug manufacturers spent $171 million last year in Federal lobbying, more than insurance, oil and gas, electronics, or any other industries. They had more lobbyists than we had Members of Congress. In fact, they could have a two-on-one defense to assure that this Congress is quiet, it is inactive, it is unresponsive to people.

Let's pass this motion and ensure that when the pharmaceutical companies use the $80 billion tax windfall, that they were just rewarded by the Republicans to pay for more mergers, that consumers don't get caught in the middle and see their prices spike even further.

We need to commit ourselves to action by approving this motion to recommit, to commit ourselves to putting consumers first over Big Pharma.

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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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