Letting Average Americans Prevail

LETTING AVERAGE AMERICANS PREVAIL -- (House of Representatives - July 13, 2004)

(Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, time after time in this body, the interests of the middle-class have come in second to the interests of the special interests. One example is the issue of drug reimportation.

Medications in other counties cost 40 percent less than they do here. Even Secretary Tommy Thompson recently acknowledged what Americans know all too well, reimporting prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries is one of the fastest ways Americans can get lower cost drugs. Experts at Boston University estimate Americans would save $60 billion by paying Canadian prices for brand-name drugs. What are we waiting for?

Republicans in Congress continue to stall, promoting the false promise of the new prescription drug discount cards as a substitute for reimportation. When the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) offered an amendment in the agricultural appropriation bill in committee that allowed for the safe reimportation of prescription drugs, Republicans tried to block it and failed. Today, that bill is on the floor. It would allow Americans to purchase these prescription drugs from other countries and lower drug costs in a straightforward way.

We should pass that amendment. I dare the Republicans to block it, as I know they will, because they are the servants of the pharmaceutical companies, and they are even trying to put that into the treaty with Australia.