Prescription Drug Costs

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I want to inform my colleagues and the American people about some progress that has been made on a very important bipartisan piece of legislation, plus what a couple other committees are doing along the same line of keeping healthcare costs down--that we are making progress to reduce the price of prescription medicine for the American people.

I have been tilling the fields of legislative policy long enough to know that we have our work cut out for us. The ranking member and I of the Finance Committee started out 6 months ago to cultivate a bipartisan consensus for much needed reforms. We knew that we had a long row ahead. Our efforts to reduce drug prices face big-time opposition from Big Pharma.

As we worked side by side in a Republican and Democratic way, we planted the seeds to grow a strong bipartisan coalition--one strong enough, I believe, to withstand the influence of moneyed special interests.

Now, it should be no surprise to anybody that Big Pharma and other stakeholders in the drug supply chain are working six ways from Sunday to throw sand in our gears. We know they will continue to fight us during the August work period.

As a lifelong farmer from Iowa, I learned a long time ago that the fruits of one's labor will not be worth a hill of beans without proper groundwork. For months, we have been tilling the soil and fertilizing the legislative fields to bear fruit at harvest time. We have teamed up with leadership of other key committees of jurisdiction.

Together with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, and the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein, the Senate has a real opportunity this Congress to deliver meaningful reforms that would yield real savings for what Americans spend on healthcare.

Both the Health and the Judiciary Committees have advanced legislative packages that help address drug prices, including bills I have sponsored, such as the CREATES Act, the Stop STALLING Act, and the Prescription Pricing for the People Act.

Since January, the Finance Committee, which I chair, and Senator Wyden is the ranking member, has held a series of hearings to examine the vulnerabilities in the drug supply chain that are ripe for abuse. We don't have the answers to all the problems, but it is really crystal clear that a strong dose of transparency is desperately needed to shed light on a convoluted pricing system when dealing with prescription drugs.

From the drug manufacturer to the patient's medicine cabinet, the drug supply chain is shrouded in secrecy and is exceedingly complex. This opaque pricing system has allowed exorbitant price hikes to climb higher and higher and higher, with no end in sight.

Don't forget, the taxpayers of the United States foot the bill for the lion's share of prescription drugs through Medicare and Medicaid.

The woolly drug supply chain allows taxpayers to be fleeced year after year. We need to let the sunshine in to help root out their abusive practices. Secrecy in the supply chain has grown into a noxious weed, damaging our free market ecosystem.

Transparency is needed to help rein in unsustainable costs threatening the fiscal viability of Medicaid and Medicare. Seniors, individuals with disability, and low-income Americans depend on these programs for lifesaving medicine and innovative cures.

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee approved the bipartisan Prescription Drug Price Reduction Act. The carefully sown Grassley- Wyden bill limits seniors' out-of-pocket costs without limiting access to lifesaving cures Americans expect. It injects reasonable incentives in government prescription drug programs for drug manufacturers and insurers to keep prices low. Pharmaceutical companies and insurers need to have more skin in the game to keep prices down. It also fixes flawed policies that distort free market principles to lower the lid on spending.

We all know in the town meetings and other places we go that Americans have spoken very loudly on this subject. They want high prescription drug prices addressed. Furthermore, Americans want Congress to act and to act now.

The Senate Finance, HELP, and Judiciary Committees have acted. Now it is time to get the job done.

As my fellow lawmakers go home over the August recess, I encourage each of you to share the good news with your constituents. Americans are fed up with sticker shock at the pharmacy counter. We have the opportunity to deliver a badly needed legislative remedy.

First, we have to drain the swampy special interests blocking the path to victory. The moneyed players in the drug supply chain will use the August recess to unleash a public relations blitz against our bipartisan efforts. You can bet the farm that Big Pharma, hospitals, and pharmacy benefit managers will whip themselves into a real frenzy to kill these bipartisan reforms.

Let's remember why we started down this path in the first place. It is simply democracy working, representative government working.

Americans are demanding relief at the prescription counter. We hear it from our constituents in our town meetings, in our letters, in our emails, and in the phone calls we get. Unchecked drug prices are putting Medicare and Medicaid in financial peril. The payment structure is unmoored from fiscal reality, and the American taxpayer is on the hook. Congress has a real opportunity to do something about the spiraling of drug prices.

For my colleagues who are on the fence about our bipartisan proposal--and there is nothing wrong with being on the fence because you have plenty of time to become acquainted with an issue you hear from your constituents all the time and to become acquainted with our solution--here are a series of questions I want you to ask yourself: Do Americans want us to act to reduce runaway drug prices? Do Americans want to keep access to breakthrough drug therapies and innovation? Do older Americans want protection from coverage gaps and out-of-pocket costs? Do people with disabilities and poor and elderly Americans who depend on Medicaid deserve access to innovative cures and next- generation therapies?

The answer to all of these questions, I think, is a resounding yes.

Farmers are smart enough to make hay while the Sun shines. Let's apply that time-tested farm lesson in the Congress. Don't bail out on the opportunity to make a meaningful difference for the people whom we are elected to serve. Too many Americans are rationing or skipping doses because they can't afford their prescription medicines.

I will finish as I started out by saying, on behalf of Senator Wyden, Senator Alexander, Senator Murray, Senator Graham, Senator Feinstein, and others, I suggest to our colleagues that this is our Goldilocks moment. Let's not let it be a gridlock moment. Our legislative reforms are not too far right and not too far left. That is what makes our bipartisan remedy to lower prescription drug prices just exactly right for the American people.

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