The Cost of Prescription Drugs in The United States

The Cost of Prescription Drugs in The United States -- (House of Representatives - March 29, 2004)

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss an issue that touches the lives of every senior in this country and want to thank my colleague from Minnesota, Mr. GUTKNECHT, for his leadership in the fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

The single greatest failure in the Medicare prescription drug bill that passed this Congress last fall-and there were many-was its refusal to do anything about the one issue that affects seniors most-price. With the cost of the 50 most frequently used medicines by seniors rising by nearly three-and-a-half times the rate of inflation, how any prescription drug bill could fail to address this concern is, frankly, beyond me. High health care prices are eroding the living standards of our middle-class families.

In the last few weeks, we have learned who the real losers were in this Medicare bill: the American people-current and future retirees. First, we learned that the true cost of the legislation was fully a third higher than Members of Congress and the public had been told-that it would cost the taxpayers $535 billion instead of the $395 bill previously reported.

I say "reported" because we also recently learned that the Medicare actuary Richard Foster, a 31-year career public servant, was threatened with dismissal by his superiors in the Administration last year when he discovered that the cost of the bill far exceeded what had been publicly acknowledged. And this was before the 3-hour vote held here on this floor.

And last week, we learned that the program will be bankrupt sooner than previously estimated. According to the Medicare trustees' report, Medicare's finances have, quote, "taken a major turn for the worse." The report predicted the program will be bankrupt by 2019, instead of 2026, as had been previously estimated. According to last Tuesday's Washington Post, since the program was created in the 1960s, never before has Medicare lurched seven years closer to insolvency in one year.

All this flies in the face of what the Republican leadership and President Bush himself said as the bill was being debated by Congress. The President said that any Medicare prescription drug legislation that came to his desk must, quote, "strengthen the program's long-term financial security." And the Speaker of this body said that the final bill, quote, "made Medicare more sustainable" and would "change the paradigm of health care in this country."

Well, Mr. Speaker, the Medicare law may have changed the paradigm of health care in this country, but it was decidedly not for the better. As a point of fact, the trustees report tells us that the law was the primary reason that Medicare-and the health care of our senior propulation-will be less secure.

Combined with an advertising campaign promoting the law that even the nonpartisan General Accounting Office found to have "notable weaknesses and other omissions," it is fair to say these recent developments have seriously undermined public trust in the Medicare program and its ability to provide care for our seniors.

This Congress has a moral responsibility to honor our contract with the seniors of this country-a contract that says after a lifetime of hard work, raising families, and doing the right thing, that seniors deserve the dignity of a secure retirement. That begins with restoring public confidence in the Medicare program-one of the twin pillars of our retirement security safety net and the embodiment of our country's shared values. That begins with improving the program's financial health for real.

The first step would be a simple one-giving ordinary Americans the opportunity to reimport drugs from some countries, a choice millions are already making on their own, out of desperation. Legalizing reimportation is something Congress ought to have included in the bill last fall. This one provision would save Americans $600 billion in the next decade-savings passed directly onto the consumer.

We know reimportation is a safe and feasible option. In 2001, U.S. drug companies themselves reimported $14.7 billion worth of brand-name medications from their overseas plants. In fact, according to incoming FDA

Commissioner Lester Crawford, for less money than the administration is spending on its advertisements to spin the truth about the recently passed Medicare bill, the FDA could set up a program to safely reimport drugs from Canada. With that knowledge, this body overwhelmingly passed legislation by a vote of 243 to 186 that would allow for the safe importation of drugs.

But instead of adopting our legislation, the final bill that passed the House and Senate contained no provisions to hold down the cost of drugs at all. And by tying the premium seniors will pay to cost, seniors' out of pocket costs will continue to rise.

Mr. Speaker, with the baby boom generation set to retire at the end of the decade, it is critical that Congress act now to protect the quality and the solvency of the Medicare system. That starts with bringing down costs, including giving the Secretary of HHS the power to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry, just like they do at the VA. But legalizing reimportation and giving seniors access to international markets is something this body supports, and it should be the first step. It should be law.

Again, I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for this opportunity. Let's do the right thing.