My sense is that some of these big drug companies are saying that the heat's off now. The speaker was Democratic Representative Ron Wyden, a longtime critic of pharmaceutical companies.
Drug Companies Keep Boosting Prices.
Families USA is among those lobbying groups which are still licking their wounds from Congress's refusal to enact President Clinton's national health care plan. The promises it claims were broken were those made in 1993 of 17 companies, which represent about two-thirds of the pharmaceutical industry. The companies promised to hold prices overall to rates at or below that of the consumer price index. Profiteering drug companies make convenient villains, precisely because they provide such valuable products. Demonizing them can help provide a basis for expanding government health regulation.