The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“AFFORDABLE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H9176-H9177 on Sept. 30, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AFFORDABLE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my special order on prescription drugs, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) if he would like to finish his thought.
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and just say that the point I wanted to make was that economists argue about what is the yield on research, the economic yield on dollars spent on research, but they argue about whether it is 20 percent or 30 percent, not whether it is 2 or 3 percent. And it is a sound investment.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago the Office of Personnel Management announced that premiums for the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan would increase by 9 percent next year, the third straight year of large increases. Last month, final figures were in for the number of seniors that will be dropped from their Medicare managed care plan come January 1: 395,000 elderly Americans. Last year, 400,000 were dropped. Most of the remaining plans are curtailing or eliminating prescription drug benefits.
Those are the numbers. Here are the stories. Last month, I received a letter from a 71-year-old widow in Sheffield Lake, Ohio, who had taken a part-time job to help pay for her prescription drugs. Until United Health Care pulled out of her county and left her without a health plan, she had some drug coverage, but just one of her medications, lipitor, absorbed the entire benefit.
I spoke with a woman recently in Elyria, Ohio, who spends $350 out of her $808 monthly Social Security check on prescription drugs.
What is the common thread here? The high cost of prescription drugs. Prescription drug spending in the U.S. increased 84 percent between 1993 and 1998. The American public is right to wonder why we are not doing something about that in this Congress. The truth is, what has held us back is a threat. The drug industry says if we do not leave drug prices alone, they will not produce any new drugs.
I believe it is time we use market forces, and by that I mean good old-fashioned competition, to challenge that threat. We can introduce more competition in the prescription drug market and still foster medical innovation.
We need information to examine the industry's claims that U.S. prices are where they need to be. I introduced last week a bill, the Affordable Prescription Drug Act, that addresses these issues head on. Drawing from intellectual property laws already in place in the United States for other products in which access is an issue, such as pollution control devices under the Clean Air Act, my bill would establish product licensing for prescription drugs.
If, based on criteria by the Department of Commerce, a drug price is so outrageously high that it bears no resemblance to pricing norms for other industries, the Federal Government could require drug companies to license their patent to generic drug companies. The generic companies could sell competing products before the brand name patent expires, paying the patent holder royalties for that right. The patent holder would still be amply rewarded for being first in the market, and Americans would benefit from competitively driven prices. Drug prices would then come down.
The bill would require drug companies to provide audited, detailed information on drug company expenses. And given that these companies are asking us to accept the status quo, in terms of high drug prices, the status quo that has bankrupted seniors and ignited health care inflation, they have kept us guessing about their true cost for all too long.
This is not some brand new untried proposal. Product licensing works in England. It works in France. It works in Israel. It works in Germany; it has worked in Canada. But there is another part of this issue. Through the National Institutes of Health, American taxpayers finance 42 percent of the research and development that generates new drugs. Private foundations, State and local governments, and other nonindustry sources kick in another 11 percent. So the drug industry funds less than half of the research and development of new drugs.
In addition, the dollars that the drug companies do spend on research, the U.S. Congress has bestowed generous tax breaks on those dollars for the drug companies. At the same time, drug prices in the United States are twice or three times or four times what they are in every other country in the world.
So get this. Half the cost of prescription drug research and development is borne by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. taxpayers then give tax breaks for the money that they do spend for the research on prescription drugs by the drug companies. And American taxpayers are then rewarded by the drug companies by being charged the highest prices in the world, double, triple, four times what those prices are.
Mr. Speaker, it is time this Congress pass the Affordable Prescription Drug Act.
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