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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I wonder if Americans think the cost of prescription drugs are too high. I wonder if Americans realize that the cost of prescription drugs are so high in this country that they are driving the cost of health insurance premiums up.

Don't take my word for it. BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois told me that directly. Why are premiums going up? Prescription drug prices are going up.

I wonder if the American people realize there are only two nations on Earth that allow drug companies to advertise drugs on television. You know one of them: United States of America. The other: New Zealand. No other country allows them to take place.

I wonder if the American people realize that the same exact American drugs that are sold here at the highest prices are sold at a deep discount in other countries: Canada. In Canada, the reason American drugs cost less than they do in America is because the Canadian people won't tolerate the prices pharmaceutical companies charge people in this country. So they established standards and cut the prices for the exact same drugs made, manufactured, and sold in the United States. They are not alone. Europe does the same thing, bringing down these prices.

So we decided that at least in one area--one area--we were going to make an exception to this overpricing of prescription drugs: the Veterans' Administration. We said it costs a lot to keep our promise to veterans who have served this country and need medical care afterward. So we are going to allow the Veterans' Administration--we do under law--to negotiate with the drug companies to bring prices down. It works. They are brought down dramatically.

For the longest time, many of us have thought that isn't enough because most of the drugs are being sold outside the Veterans' Administration, and there is no negotiation; it is a take-it-or-leave- it. Medicare--tens of millions of Americans who are covered by Medicare face the cost of drugs which are sky-high.

So we decided, on the Democratic side, that we were going to listen to the people we represent, who have told us over and over again that when it comes to the cost of living and expenses families face, many of these families were facing a choice of their money or their lives to buy drugs that doctors told them were essential for their survival. So we proposed that, finally, the pharmaceutical companies have to negotiate with the government when it comes to Medicare drug pricing.

Now, you didn't hear that directly from the Senator from Kentucky who just spoke. He talked about socialism in pricing drugs. Socialism? For the government to suggest we want to bargain for prices? These companies, incidentally, are not getting by hand to mouth. They are doing quite well, and they are making a lot of money.

And they didn't do it on their own. I want to address that issue, this notion that if they were paid less for their drugs, it would stifle innovation. The pharmaceutical industry typically spends more money on advertising than they do on research.

Why would they do that? So that some people watching the ad of a person skipping through a field of flowers will finally get to the point where they can spell ``Xarelto'' and go into a doctor's office and say: I want to skip through flowers. I want Xarelto. And--you know what--some doctors say ``fine'' and write the script. That is why the cost of medicine and healthcare goes up.

The bottom line is this. These pharmaceutical companies, as good as they are, as many things as they find, they don't do it alone. You know what the No. 1 supplier of research information is to the private sector pharmaceutical companies in America? The Federal Government. The National Institutes of Health. We spend tens of billions of dollars each year doing basic research, which is then used by the pharmaceutical company to develop their drugs.

Is it too much to ask them to bargain a fair price for drugs sold to Medicare so that the taxpayers get a break, and the pharmaceutical profits may go down just slightly? I don't think it is too much to ask.

We are going to have an interesting debate in the next few weeks because the Democrats think it is time that pharma be held responsible for dramatically overcharging Americans for pharmaceutical drugs that cost a fraction of its price in Canada and Europe.

The Senator from Kentucky obviously sees it another way. He thinks it is socialism. He calls it a free lunch--we want to give away a free lunch. It isn't a free lunch when you can't afford to fill your prescription the doctor gave you and you wonder if you are jeopardizing your health or your life.

Take the drug insulin. We are working on that too. Insulin wasn't discovered by Americans; it was discovered by Canadians back in the early part of the 20th century. And they decided--and what a gesture it was--that they were going to give away and surrender the patent on this discovery.

Before then, it was not atypical that people died from diabetes. After insulin, they could survive. It was a life and death drug. And the researchers who discovered it said: This shouldn't be a profitmaker; this should be something that is priced so that people can continue to live.

Well, what has happened to insulin? Over the years, the pharmaceutical companies started doing their magic, and the cost of insulin for many people is dramatically higher than they can afford. Some people actually cut the amount of insulin which they are told to take because they can't afford it.

We want to bring down the cost of this lifesaving drug to a $35 a month maximum premium for insulin, and I think that is a reasonable amount of money.

So I believe that when it comes to the drug industry in America, it is a great sector of our economy. They have found some wonderful things, with the help of Federal research. They are making profits, as I guess every private sector company is designed to do. But it is not unreasonable for us to ask, it is not socialistic for us to ask, as American citizens, that they negotiate fair prices for all Americans. They do it for veterans. They can do it for Medicare and others.

And if Senator McConnell is signaling we are in for a fight over this issue, all I have to say are three words: Bring it on. Bring it on. The American people are sick and tired of the overpricing of these drugs, and I think it is time that we have this debate. And if the Republicans want to stay on the side of pharma and say the Democrats are wrong, let's take that to the American people in November. I think it is a viable issue.

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