Prescription Drug Costs
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as most of my colleagues know, I hold a meeting in each of Iowa's 99 counties every year for Q&A with my constituents. Over the last couple of years, without fail, Iowans have brought up the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs. People all over my State, including farmers, factory workers, and especially senior citizens, have raised the concern that pharmacy bills have been ballooning.
I will say, Iowans are always interested in hearing about solutions, and they are looking for solutions on this issue from Congress, but not a single one of these people who bring this issue up cares about the partisan politics of the issue. Iowans just want Congress to act. This is my 40th year of taking questions in our 99 counties--although, as of now, only 14. Rarely have I heard so much unanimity when it comes to this issue, but on prescription drug prices, it is unanimous. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike all want us to take action, and the data, both polling and otherwise, bears out our constituents' concerns.
As I highlighted last week, right here in this position on the Senate floor, a new study shows that pharmaceutical prices have increased 3\1/ 2\ times the rate of inflation in recent years. People are paying more than double what they paid in the year 2007 for drugs treating conditions from MS to diabetes and everything in between. The lack of transparency and the enormous subsidy incentives are driving these price hikes--perverse incentives that we have in law. If they were not intended to be perverse, they are incentives people have found out how to benefit from.
This is because the government's spigot is all the way open for the big pharmaceutical companies or--how we say it around here--Big Pharma. Of course, when this happens, taxpayers get ripped off. It happens because we pay a lot of money--I think about $138 billion--for Medicare and Medicaid. We pay at least that much. So, when you have 5- to 10- percent increases on January 1, you can see willy-nilly, on the judgment of Big Pharma, that taxpayers are paying a heck of a lot more.
I know all of my colleagues want to do something about this, and I know the administration wants to do something about it. In fact, let me say to the administration that I have been involved in this as the chairman of this committee since just a year ago January. The administration has given a major speech, and the Secretary of HHS has taken major action going way back to June of 2018. So we all know that our colleagues and our administration know that something needs to be done.
We are fortunate that, just yesterday, the White House published five principles that the administration can get behind for reducing prescription drug costs. Our legislation in the Senate fits the bill, or the principles, that were laid out in that op-ed piece. The Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act is the name of our legislation, and it addresses those principles. More importantly, it is the only option that can get 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.
Many Americans are reading about the coronavirus issue. It scares our constituents. We don't know what kind of drugs might come into the market to help treat the disease. Senator Cassidy, who will soon speak, is an expert on that. He can address those issues for anybody who wants them addressed. Yet, if our bill becomes law, we know that folks who are on Medicare will not face sticker shock at the drugstore counter. Not only is that important in its being a comforting thought in the short term, as we face the coronavirus, but it is important in the long term, when we inevitably encounter another novel outbreak.
It took a long time to hammer out the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act. I thank Senator Wyden for sticking it out with me and working in good faith for the benefit of all of our constituents so we could produce a bipartisan bill. His determination as well as the leadership of many of my colleagues, like Senators Cassidy, Collins, and Daines, have further improved the legislation. We have a bill. We have bipartisan support, and we have White House support. We also have the opportunity. The bottom line is, let's act.
I thank my colleagues for joining me in this effort.
I yield to my colleague Senator Collins.
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