Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank my good friend from California.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4.

The average guy out there doesn't ordinarily pay much attention to the minute details of Federal prescription drug law. You have to screw up pretty bad to create a grassroots movement centered around a one-line sentence buried deep in the depths of the Medicare Act, but that is exactly what happened here.

For those of us who are coming here anew, we have spent the last 2 years talking to our seniors and our taxpayers about the horrors of this bill. As the cost of this program skyrocketed, as premiums increased, as the donut hole expanded, seniors suffered and drug companies prospered.

And guess what? The American people started to notice that little sentence buried deep in that Medicare Act that seemed so out of place and so unnecessary.

My presence here today is a living example of this popular discontent which those on the other side of the aisle seem so eager to ignore. And even if this bill doesn't fix that Medicare drug program overnight, it is an unmistakable signal to the people that I represent back home that this House is no longer a place where industry can profit off of a desperately needed social program; it is a place now where common sense comes first.

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