**Floor Speech**

**February 24, 2004**

**Mr. Burton:** Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's been a lot of talk over
the past few months and debate here in the Congress about the high cost
of prescription drugs. I just got a letter from one of my colleagues \--
one of my constituents, rather, in Indiana, a fellow named Joseph Neff.

Joseph, age 67, and his wife buy a lot of prescription pharmaceuticals
from Canada. If you look at the blowup of the letter, it shows a
three-month supply of the pharmaceutical products he\'s been buying from
Canada. I don\'t know if can you see this, it shows he\'s going to save
\$3,007 a year by buying pharmaceuticals from Canada the very same thing
he would buy here in the United States. The same identical prescription
drugs, yet they cost him \$3,007 per year than if he bought them here in
the United States. The cost of prescription drugs that he\'s paying
right now is 50%. He's saving 50% on the medications he\'s buying from
Canada. If he bought them through AARP on a discount card it would be
about 10%. even though AARP has a discount card, he\'s still going to
save a heck of a lot more by going directly to Canada.

The pharmaceutical industry has been fighting day and night to stop
reimportation of pharmaceuticals. They have gone to the health agencies
of this country, the FDA and Health and Human Services and they have
told them it\'s not safe for reimportation and our health agencies have
been going along with it. Yet we held four hearings, four hearings and
we asked them at the HHS and FDA offices to give us one example of where
people were harmed by pharmaceuticals brought in from Canada, and they
couldn\'t give us one.

The pharmaceutical industry has unusual support in our health agencies.
They have undue influence on our health agencies. As a result the
American people like Joe and his wife are paying exorbitant prices for
pharmaceuticals compared to what they are paying in Canada, Germany, and
other parts of the world. Recently, in fact today, there was a poll that
was released by the Associated Press. It stated that a third of American
families struggle to afford their prescriptions, and 73% of those
struggling families have to cut their dosages by as much as half. Why
doesn\'t our government listen to the people we represent? There is not
a safety issue. That's a bogus argument. Yet the health agencies of this
country continue to walk in lockstep with the pharmaceutical companies
saying there is a health risk.

It's simply about money. The big profits they make here in the United
States are huge compared to what they are making in other countries. And
yet we continue to let them do that when the price that they charge
should be fair and equitable for everybody throughout the world. All of
their profits should not be loaded on the backs of the American people
who are struggling right now to make ends meet.

In July of this year, we had a vote on this floor. And the vote
overwhelmingly passed saying that we wanted the reimportation of
pharmaceuticals to be allowed so Americans could get the breaks they are
getting in other countries. And even though that passed, when the
Medicare prescription drug bill came out of conference committee, they
left that out.

The other thing that really bothers me is that the American people
realize that our government should be negotiating to make sure that
Medicare prescription drug prices are as low as possible. Yet there is a
prohibition in law passed by the congress of the United States that does
not allow our government under the Medicare prescription drug bill that
negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to get the best price for
the American taxpayer. We are going to pay the highest prices for
pharmaceuticals that the pharmaceutical companies want to charge, while
in other countries there are negotiations taking place between their
governments and the pharmaceutical industry. This just isn\'t right.
This is something my colleagues on the \-- both sides of the aisle feel
strongly about.

What we have to do is take our health agencies and anybody else to task
who is trying to load all of the profits of pharmaceuticals on the backs
of American people. The American people need fairness. They need to know
that they are going to be treated fairly. They should not have to cut
their pharmaceutical products in half in order to make \-- to stretch
them out so they can take care of their health needs. They don\'t want
to pay 50%, 70%, 100%, 300% more than they are in Canada. And they
should not be called criminals because they go across the border and buy
the very same product up there for a heck of a lot less than here in the
United States.

In addition, 25 states, governors of 25 states and a multitude of cities
across this country are now trying to negotiate with Canadian
pharmaceutical companies \-- pharmaceutical distributors to buy their
pharmaceutical products through Canada because they can save so much
money and it will help their budgets at the state and local level. This
is a problem that\'s not going to go away. The pharmaceutical industry
and our health agencies need to address this problem, and, Mr. Speaker,
we are not going to be quiet on this floor until this problem is solved.
Thank you, I yield back the balance of my time.