Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from Vermont for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, it has been my privilege since I have been in public life to represent thousands of IBM employees in Rochester, Minnesota. In fact, approximately 6,000. I do not know how much of the story has been told, but this is a serious subject. Now, I come at this not only as a representative of over 6,000 IBMers, but I come at this as a former member of the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement. So I am not saying I am an expert on pension policy, but this is something I probably know a little more about than the average Member of Congress. As the gentleman from Illinois just said, the concept of these cash balance plans or defined contribution plans, modified defined contribution plans, is not necessarily a bad idea. For many younger employees who are going to change careers and jobs throughout their careers, this probably makes some sense. But the bottom line for older workers, workers who have been with a company for perhaps 20 years, this is a shameless attempt to try and steal pension money. Part of the reason that IBM lost that lawsuit in southern Illinois is because the facts did not support their position. I want to talk a little bit about a different dimension to this, because I do also agree with the gentleman from Illinois; we can craft a plan that is a win-win situation, that would allow companies to convert their pension plans, with one caveat: that you give vested employees a choice. Let me just read from the dictionary the definition of the term ``vested.'' The definition is ``settled, fixed or absolute; being without contingency, as in a vested right.'' The way you do this, Mr. Chairman, is you literally say to those employees who have been vested that you get a choice. The companies can make a conversion, if they want, for any new hires. They can even make a conversion for those employees who have not vested. But at the least, we ought to agree with this amendment that the Federal Government and its resources should not be used to appeal this particular case. This is a very important case. Let me just talk to the Republicans for a minute. Understand, I am not sure that Republicans understand what is at stake here and who really is involved. We are not just talking about 6,000 IBMers; we are talking about literally hundreds of thousands of other people, most of them who are 45 years of age or older, who have been with a company for a very long time, many of them what we would call professional people, college-educated, technically trained people. Let me be very blunt: 75 percent of them vote Republican. They understand this issue, if it has happened to them or if they are afraid that it will happen to them. In fact, go back to the issue of vested. TIAA-KREFF, when they put out a questionnaire or they put out some questions and answers when people sign up for their various pension plans, let me read Question 7 and the answer. I do not have to read the answer. The question is, ``When do my plan contributions become vested?'' And then in parentheses it says ``i.e., owned by me.'' Now, what 6,000 IBMers found out, I should say probably 5,000 of them at least who were vested, what they found out is there is no legal definition of the word ``vested.'' They came into work one day and they had calculators. As part of their computer tool kit on their computers, they had pension calculators which would literally calculate for them how much their pension would be worth if they stayed with the company until they retired at age 65 or 66, whatever the age was. They could do their little calculation of how much their pension was worth. All of a sudden they came in one day and IBM changed the pension plan. For a few days IBM made a huge mistake. They left the calculators on the employees' computer screens. They could very quickly do the calculations in terms of how much the old pension plan was worth to them and then how much the new pension plan was worth to them. They did not have to be computer experts to begin to figure out that all of a sudden they had lost, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of pension benefits that they thought were vested. Mr. Chairman, we should not mess with this. I agree with the chairman from Oklahoma. I do not think the Congress should be messing with this. I do not think the administration should be messing with this. I think this should be left to the courts. He said, well, this is not pension law. But, understand, and I hope the gentleman from Oklahoma is paying attention here, because pension law is set in several different ways. First of all, it is what is in statute. It is also what is in rule. That is what we are concerned about. The other thing we are concerned about that is really at issue today is in terms of precedent in the courts. In some respects, this administration is taking a wrong turn by getting involved in this issue. This is an explosive political issue. If you do not believe it, I would ask you to come to my hometown and have a town hall meeting, or have a committee meeting, if you want to hear from 6,000 IBMers. This is a good amendment. This is the right thing to do. It ought to be included in this bill.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. This is an ad, I say to my colleagues, that ran in today's New York Times and it ran in some other newspapers I think here on Capitol Hill as well. It says, ``Don't destroy America's pension system. Vote no on the Sanders amendment.'' It says, the Sanders amendment to the Treasury Appropriation bill threatens to outlaw vast numbers of pension plans.'' Well, that is just outrageous. That is simply not true. We do not outlaw any pension plans. It goes on to say, ``Prevent pension plans from protecting employees' pensions against inflation while they wait to receive their benefits.'' That is not true. The Sanders amendment does not do that. All this amendment does, I say to my colleagues, is it says the Federal Government, the Federal taxpayers should not join in this lawsuit against workers. I mean, these workers literally have had pension benefits stolen from them and we are saying, at least the administration should be kept from joining sides with the company. This is the most outrageous ad since the prescription drug ads that they were running a few weeks ago. Now, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and I agree on almost nothing, but twice a year we agree on two things. One is the prescription drug prices and the other is pension policy. This is a good amendment. It ought to be included in this bill. It is outrageous for the administration to join sides with companies that are trying to steal from pensions. I say to my colleagues, we have to understand, pensions are in trust. We had this when I was on the pension commission back in Minnesota. One year there was a firefighter from Winona who embezzled something like $200,000 from the Winona Firefighters Pension Fund. And both sides came in and said, it is not my money. It is not my money. The money that was embezzled belonged to the city, or it was not our money that was embezzled. And then, when the pension fund started to get better rates of return and they were making more money than they needed, then the groups were coming in and saying, wait a second. That is our money. The fact of the matter is pension money does not belong to the company and it does not belong to the employees. It is in trust. And when they make these conversions, the real purpose is to take that money, in effect, out of the trust and put it on to the bottom line of the companies. This is a good idea. This amendment should be added to this bill.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), who has the unenviable task of following that.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify real quickly that nothing in this bill deals with controlled substances like RU486 or morphine, and nothing in this bill would have anything to do with Ephedra. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the author of the Shays act.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond. First of all, I hope Members would at least read the bill. We have heard a lot about safety tonight. This bill specifically includes section sections 501, 502, 505, which are the safety codes. As the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) said earlier, essentially the FDA wrote all the law that is here. Secondly, the FDA has inspected, this is the report, 949 facilities, all the way to China in the last 5 years. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Louisville, Kentucky (Mrs. Northup).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say thank you to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson), because we would not be having this historic debate tonight without her courage, and I want to thank her. Mr. Speaker, I have been down on this floor many, many times with my charts, talking about this issue. I have had charts and plenty of statistics, but the saddest statistic of all that I have come across is this from the Kaiser Foundation. Twenty-nine percent of seniors say that they have had prescriptions that went unfilled because they could not afford them. Shame on us. I was at a community pharmacists meeting a few months ago. There were 300 community pharmacists there. I asked them this question: Has this ever happened to you where someone comes into your store with a prescription, they hand you the prescription, you tell them how much it is going to be and their head drops, their voice drops, and they say, Well, maybe I'll be back tomorrow. And they never come back. Shame on us. We have heard about safety. We have heard about intellectual property rights. No one wants unsafe drugs or to steal patents. We have heard about price controls and aren't we simply importing them. But the plain truth is today, Americans are subsidizing them. This bill is not perfect, but it is not complicated, either. We simply take away the FDA's power to defy the will of this the people's House and in its place we put counterfeit-proof, tamper-proof packaging. I will not question any Member's motives, but others will. If you are going to vote against this bill tonight, you had better go back to your office and write a letter to your constituents explaining exactly why, because you will be asked. Maybe it will be at a town hall or a candidates forum, or maybe in your opponent's ads next year, but you will be asked. Someone is going to hold up a package of pills and they are going to ask this: Why is it that Americans have to spend $360 for this drug, this lifesaving drug, when Germans can buy it for $60? And then they are going to ask the even tougher question: Congressman, what did you do about it? Tonight we can send a very simple but clear message. The status quo is unacceptable, and we will not stand idly by and allow Americans to be forced to pay the world's highest prices for prescription drugs. Members, all I ask is vote your conscience. Millions of proud Americans are counting on us.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I rise in reluctant support of this bill. This is the people's House. This is an historic night. Tonight we will decide whether we represent the people or whether we represent the big pharmaceutical companies. This is an important vote, and I am proud of the discussion we have heard here tonight. It is Republicans, it is Democrats, it is Independents. This is not an issue of right versus left. This is an issue of right versus wrong, and we have an opportunity tonight to right that wrong, and the wrong is all around us and we see it. Look at the numbers. I am just a guy with a chart. I do not have a big PAC. I do not have 600 lobbyists, but I have got charts and I have got facts, and John Adams said it best, Facts are stubborn things, and look at the facts. Look what Americans pay for these drugs. Look what my father has to pay for coumadin in the United States, almost $90. The same drug can be bought in Germany for $21. Look at glucophage, $5 in Germany, $29.95 here in the United States. The worst one is this one, Tamoxifen. This is a lifesaver for women with breast cancer. It sells in the United States for $360. This same drug made in the same plant under the same FDA approval sells in Germany for $60. That is unacceptable, and those who defend the system by saying safety, let them explain how it is that this industrialized Nation can import hundreds of thousands of tons of food every week. We import 40 percent of our orange juice. We will import 318,000 tons of plantains, but somehow we cannot import prescription drugs. My bill makes it even safer because we require tamper-proof, counterfeit-proof packaging. Frankly, we should not even have to require that. If I ran a pharmaceutical company, we would put that out there right now. Do my colleagues know how much this package will cost in an additional cost to pharmaceuticals? Less than a nickel to make certain that our drug system is even safer. I support this rule. I support this debate. We ought to pass this bill tonight by an overwhelming majority. I thank my colleagues and may God bless America.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the U.S.-Japan Maritime Youth Exchange Program and its participants for 2003. The U.S.-Japan Maritime Youth Exchange Program brings together 12 high school students (6 from each country) for a three-week program of travel and study in Japan and the United States. It was developed and funded through a partnership between the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation in Washington, DC and the Japan Youth Research Institute beginning in 1998. The major objective of the program is to increase mutual understanding by American and Japanese youth of our maritime traditions and the importance of our continued cooperation and alliance. The program's purpose is to teach participants about the historical, cultural, economic, and other factors that impact the two countries' maritime policies and practices. The program joins together one American cadet and one Japanese student as ``partners'' throughout the exchange. By fostering understanding, respect, teamwork and friendship, on both the individual and group levels, the program will work to create a healthy partnership for the future and greatly benefit both countries. Entering its sixth year, this unique opportunity takes participants to naval, cultural, and historical sites in cities such as Groton, CT, New York City, Washington, DC, and San Diego in the US; and Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Tokyo in Japan. The students travel together for ten days in United States and ten days in Japan during July and August. Six American students are high school juniors chosen from the Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) program. The 12 students are chosen through a rigorous selection process by their respective countries. The six Japanese participants are chosen from throughout that nation by the Japan Youth Research Institute. Adult leaders for the program will include two Americans from the Education Institute, U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation and two Japanese from the Japan Youth Research Institute. The students learn about maritime issues with focus on the roles of the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force. Founded in 1977 by Navy, civic, and national leaders, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation is a non-partisan, educational, not-for-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization, honoring men and women of the U.S. sea services, and perpetuating their values, heritage, and traditions. The Foundation serves as an ``embassy'' to the American people and the sea services- bringing the Americans closer to the sea services and educating the significant impact and sacrifices young Sailors and Marines have and are making throughout the world in securing our freedom. The six American students are entering their senior year of high school, have a scholastic average of at least 3.2, and have graduated from NJROTC Leadership Academy. The students are required to complete a series of research assignments as preparation for their trip, allowing a greater education benefit during this fast-paced program. Meeting as strangers in San Diego, California, the students will quickly develop close bonds throughout their trip while visiting various maritime and historical sites in both countries. The program pairs every American and Japanese student, fostering an atmosphere of understanding, respect, and teamwork with the aim of lifetime partnerships, which will greatly benefit both countries. Students participating in the 2003 program include Carl Beierl of Virginia Beach, VA, Zoe Harrold of Euclid, OH, Amanda Perez of Cary, NC, Natasha Rutherford of Jonesville, VA, Scott Salamone of Virginia Beach, VA, Christopher Terrell of Pensacola, FL, Yusuke Kawabata of Kanagawa, Japan, Shohei Konishi of Tokyo, Japan, Masamichi Yazaki of Hyogo, Japan, Marie Nagai of Saitama, Japan, Fumiko Miyazaki of Aichi, Japan, and Ayumi Tomatsuri of Saitama, Japan.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I rise again tonight to talk about an issue that I suspect many of my colleagues are becoming weary of, and frankly, I am as well. It is the issue of the cost of prescription drugs and what we pay in the United States compared to what the rest of the industrialized world pays for those exact same drugs. What I have tonight is a chart. I apologize, it is a little difficult to read. I am going to hold up the back of today's Congressional Daily. It has a picture of two tablets in a little cardboard container and under it the captions says, ``Quick. Pick The Capsule That Hasn't Been Tampered With.'' And somehow we are supposed to believe that if we allow Americans to have access to FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities from around the world, that obviously people are going to tamper with them and people will die. So we have made up our own little chart, a little comparison that says, ``Quick. Pick The Bottle That Hasn't Been Tampered With.'' Can you pick which one? The fact of the matter is, this year we will import from other countries, and I have the exact number, $824,888,000 worth of imported wine. Now, it is altogether possible that somebody could tamper with that wine. Yet every day Americans buy bottles of wine from all over the world and they open that wine, and how do they know that it has not had arsenic put in it? They do not. We take a risk every day. Every day Americans eat imported plantains, imported cucumbers, imported fruits, imported vegetables, and imported meat. Americans take a risk every day and we do not even inspect them. Well, I take that back, we do inspect them a little bit. About 2 percent of the products coming into the country get inspected. But, nonetheless, if you eat an imported food that has some form of food-borne pathogen and you die, you are still dead. Now, what do we know. The CDC and the FDA keep very good records, and we have had testimony and we have asked them this question several times, how many Americans have actually become seriously ill or died from taking FDA-approved drugs from other countries? And it is an easy number to remember. It is a nice round number. The number is zero. Yet we continue to hear these scare tactics. Scare tactics serve only one purpose, and that is to obscure the facts. The facts, I think, speak for themselves, though, and that is that Americans, because we are a captive market, pay the world's highest prices for drugs, which largely are developed here in the United States and many times paid for by the taxpayers' research dollars. Let us take one drug, perhaps the most effective anti-breast- cancer drug ever developed, Tamoxifen, developed essentially here in the United States with taxpayer dollars. We invested almost half a billion dollars, taxpayer dollars, developing Tamoxifen, but here is what really chaps my hide. Americans are expected to pay $360 a month for Tamoxifen. That drug can be purchased every day of the week in Germany for $60, as we did, or it can be bought in Canada for $50. Now, scare tactics are really not about helping Americans understand the facts, because the facts speak for themselves. It is about trying to obscure the facts. We require in our bill that we begin to develop a process of counterfeit-proof, tamper-proof packaging which will benefit whether the drugs are imported, exported, or made and consumed here in the United States. This is really about profit over people. It is not about safety, it is not about research, it is about money. It is about big money. We estimate that over the next 10 years, seniors alone, if we open up markets and markets level those prices here in the United States, seniors alone could save over $600 billion. That is with a ``B''. We are talking real money. As my colleague from Oregon earlier said, that could be worth more than this entire prescription drug benefit plan that we are talking about. Let me tell my colleagues the story of Dr. Wenner from Vermont. Her clinic began to encourage, or at least assist their patients to buy their drugs from Canada rather than in the United States. They have kept very scrupulous records. So far the records she gave us in testimony, which was sworn testimony before a subcommittee here in the House, was that her patients had been saving 62 percent, and she had seen no adverse reactions to the drugs. Later this week Members will get a chance to vote on this important matter, and they are going to have to ask themselves, is it really about safety? Is it really about research? Or is it really about putting profit over people? Ultimately, we are going to have to ask ourselves those questions and we are going to have to defend the answer. Because if a year from now we are still paying $360 for that Tamoxifen and the Germans are paying $60, it is not shame on them, it is shame on us.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I am somewhat hesitant to wade into this debate because I am somewhat new to it, and I want to agree with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), and I rise in opposition to this amendment. He talked about the millions of acres and the millions of dollars. Essentially, if we boil this debate down that we are having right now, the proponents of this amendment are saying the status quo is just fine. Let me tell my colleagues, the status quo is not fine. Let me give my colleagues some of the reasons. Let me give my colleagues some of the reasons why the status quo is not acceptable. It is not about millions of dollars. It is not even about millions of acres of wasted forest. Let me give my colleagues some of the reasons: Kathi Beck, 24, Eugene, Oregon; Tami Bickett, 25, Powell Butte, Oregon; Scott Blecha, 27, Clatskanie, Oregon; Levi Brinkley, 22, Burns, Oregon; Robert Browning, no age given, of Savannah, Georgia; Doug Dunbar, 23, of Redmond, Oregon; Terri Hagen, 28, Prineville, Oregon; Bonnie Holtby, 21 years old, Prineville, Oregon; Rob Johnson, 26, Redmond, Oregon. John Kelso, 27, Prineville, Oregon; Don Mackey, 34, Hamilton, Montana; Roger Roth, 30, McCall, Idaho; James Thrash, 44, McCall, Idaho; Richard Tyler, 33, Grand Junction, Colorado. Those are the young people. Those are the young people who lost their lives in one forest fire. And for people to come to the floor of this House and say the status quo is acceptable, that we can lose 23 forest firefighters in 1 year, 18 the year before, 17 the year before, 86 young people in the last 4 years, I say the status quo is not acceptable. I say we have to move forward with healthy forest management. For people out in the West, they must be wondering, why does Washington continue to fiddle while our forests burn and our young forest firefighters die? No, Members, the status quo is not acceptable. How many more young people will have to die fighting these fires until we realize that we need real healthy forest management? It starts today. It starts with our vote on this amendment. Let us reject this amendment. Let us let the Forest Service do what it knows how to do best. Let us get honest plans going for these forests. Let us do it now.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan used to say that, ``If you say something that's not true, and you don't know it's not true, well, that's a mistake. But when you say something that's not true and you know it's not true, well, that's a lie.'' We have had an awful lot of things that have been said in the last couple of weeks about a bill that I am very involved with in terms of opening up markets so that Americans can have access to world-class drugs at world market prices, and some of the groups have gone over the edge, especially as it relates to tying the issue of abortion to the issue of allowing Americans to have access to cheaper drugs around the world. I want to read from a letter from one of my heroes, and he is a fellow who served in this House admirably for 6 years. I was privileged to serve with him, Mr. Speaker. Dr. Tom Coburn is an OB-GYN, and he served in Congress for 6 years. He sent a letter to Members of Congress when he heard that the pharmaceutical industry is somehow tying RU-486 to the debate about reimportation of drugs. Now, Dr. Coburn was one of the most militant advocates and defenders of the sanctity of human life that the Congress has ever seen. He was also a supporter and an author of the bill to open up markets so that Americans could have access to those drugs at fairer prices. He says in his letter, and I will submit the entire letter for the Record, but he says in his letter, and I quote: ``As a pro-life practicing physician who earned a 100 percent pro-life voting record while serving in Congress, I find it ludicrous that those who oppose your legislation would resort to ad hominem attacks with no basis in reality.'' He goes on, and it is a very strong letter. I also want to submit for the Record a letter from our colleagues, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who are very active and co-chairmen of the House Pro-Life Caucus, and they say in their letter, and I will submit it for the Record: ``While we both wish RU-486 were not legal, this debate is not about abortion.'' I want to come back to my original point, that when you say something that is not true and you know it is not true, well, that is a lie. If anyone should know the rules about RU-486, one would think that the people who make the drug would know the rules here in the United States. RU-486 cannot be purchased in the United States of America with a prescription. It cannot be purchased without a prescription. It can only be administered in a doctor's office by a doctor. In other words, no one can go to a doctor's office and have the doctor write out a prescription to take to the pharmacy and buy the drug. Therefore, nothing that we are talking about in terms of importation of legal FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities around the world, nothing in that legislation could be impacted by RU- 486 because it cannot be obtained without a prescription. It cannot be obtained with a prescription. More importantly, RU-486 is completely illegal in Canada and Mexico. So when you say something that is not true and you know it is not true, well, that is a lie. And that is the kind of thing that we have had to deal with in the last several weeks. Now, we in politics are used to puffery. We are used to distortions. We are used to people sometimes saying things that are not completely truthful. We have half- truths. But this is a bald-face lie. So I come to the floor today to say that people can disagree about whether or not Americans should have to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, but these groups that oppose this do so for what I believe is clearly a profit motive. In other words, it is the pharmaceutical companies who understand that if we pass this bill, prescription drug prices in the United States are going to drop dramatically. I have used examples and I have my charts, and people can argue with my charts, although no one does. The pharmaceutical industry can come in and say, well, it is not true that Americans really have to pay $360 for Tamoxifen while they can buy it for $60 in Germany. Maybe that is true, maybe it is not true; but that is what we found out in the research we did. We bought the drug in Munich, Germany, for $59.05. We called pharmacies here in Washington, D.C. and asked them how much does this particular drug in this particular milligrams, this number of tablets, what does it sell for, and they said it is $360. Now, maybe we are wrong, but that is an honest mistake. But we believe we are telling the truth, and in everything we have done we have cited our sources. Now, some people have questioned our sources, but they are making up facts that they know are not true. This is not about abortion. It is not about RU-486. The question that we are going to be asked, hopefully next week, is will we stand with American consumers, or will we stand with the giant pharmaceutical industry. I hope we will get the right answer. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the letters I referred to above: July 10, 2003. Hon. Gil Gutknecht, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Gil. I was shocked to learn that some opponents of free-market access for prescription drugs have begun arguing that your legislation, H.R. 2427, the ``Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003'' somehow promotes abortion and, more specifically, the availability of abortion drugs such as RU- 486. As you may recall, while in the House I was the author of not only provisions to permit the reimportation of FDA- approved drugs, but also the author of the House-approved proposal to block FDA-approval of RU-486. As a pro-life practicing physician who earned a 100 percent pro-life voting record while serving in Congress, I find it ludicrous that those who oppose your legislation would resort to ad hominem attacks with no basis in reality. I can state unequivocally that your legislation in no way, shape, or form promotes abortion. Many pro-life members are original cosponsors of your legislation and, quite obviously, do not believe your bill violates their deeply held convictions about the sanctity of life. Those who argue that your legislation makes abortion drugs more accessible by lowering overall drug prices necessitate the conclusion that in order to be pro-life one must be in favor of increasing all drug costs. I suppose the argument would be the higher the drug costs the more fervent your pro-life beliefs. In Washington, it was always sad to see organizations drift from their core principles and take positions that defined common sense and logic. Any organization that links your legislation with the abortion debate will, in the long-term undermine their credibility and relevancy in Washington. While the pharmaceutical industry has provided many wonderful saving drugs, it would be unwise for anyone to believe that the industry that developed and fought for FDA approval of RU-486 is now motivated by a passion for the pro-life cause. The fact that opponents of your legislation have resorted to these attacks is shameful, yet the obtuseness of their logic ultimately serves to highlight the soundness of your argument. Sincerely yours, Tom A. Coburn, M.D. Former Member of Congress.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, coming back to the abortion piece, if anybody knows what the rules are on the drug RU-486, it is the drug companies that make it. We talk about Canada and Mexico, we do not even mention Mexico in our legislation because we only talk about industrialized countries. We mention only the G-8 countries, countries that we know have very sophisticated methods of regulating the drugs. But let us come back to RU-486. That is what they are going after with some of the pro-lifers with that mailer. Here is what they know.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That must be for 100 tablets. Does it say?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is what we are talking about.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the House tonight again to talk about the issue of prescription drugs and the prices that Americans pay compared to the prices that people pay in the rest of the industrialized world. I will have colleagues joining me tonight from time to time from both sides of the political aisle. We have Republicans, we have Democrats, we have people who would consider themselves conservative and, hopefully, some who will be coming down who consider themselves to be liberals or progressives. Because this is not an issue of right versus left. It is an issue of right versus wrong. Tomorrow night we hope to do another Special Order on a bipartisan basis to talk about this issue again, because I think this is the kind of issue that we need to talk about, that Members need to understand. Mr. Speaker, I, in the past, have said that the fact that Americans pay so much more than the people in Canada or in Germany or Switzerland or France, I have always said that it is not so much shame on the pharmaceutical industry, it is shame on us. And it is really our responsibility. Our own FDA works for the Congress and not the other way around. But, tonight, my tone is going to start to change because of some of the things that the pharmaceutical industry has been doing over the last several weeks. President Reagan said, if you tell something that is not true but you do not know it is not true, that is a mistake. If you say something that is not true and you know it is not true, that is a lie. And in the last several weeks we have seen things that really do border on lies, because the people who are telling the stories know that they are not true. We are going to talk about that tonight. I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), for joining me tonight in this Special Order. I know that he has had an incredibly long day and he can only stay for a few minutes, so I would like to yield to him so that he can talk about the issue and the problem and what we in Congress maybe can do to bring some parity and fairness in terms of the prices that our consumers are forced to pay for these life-saving drugs.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we have plenty of examples. Before the gentleman goes, one of the issues that I briefly referenced in my opening remarks was that up until the last several days I have been very hesitant to criticize the pharmaceutical industry because in many respects they did not create this system; Congress did. They did not allow this system to perpetuate. It was the FDA and the Congress that did. But recently they have begun what I think is an unethical strategy to try and scare seniors, to scare consumers, to begin to get them to believe that the problems that would be created by this legislation are insurmountable. And to the gentleman's credit, the gentleman has had the courage to fight back. Because they have started to run ads on radio, they started to do mailings to our seniors, they are making phone calls to our seniors, they are mailing to pro-life groups; and that is where I get back to this point. If you tell something that is not true and you know it is not true, that is a lie. And I think sometimes here in this city we have to call an untruth a lie. And to the gentleman's credit, and I want the gentleman to talk a little bit about what he has done in Chicago to begin to call things the way they really are and to counterattack. And I admire the gentleman for that. Perhaps the gentleman can talk a little bit about what has been happening in Chicago, in the gentleman's district, and what he is doing about it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman. We have sort of suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune over this issue, but it is worth it because this is a big issue. The gentleman mentioned they are desperate. They understand what we understand, that over the next 10 years this is a $630 billion issue. And that $630 billion is going to be paid by seniors, it is going to be paid by families, it is going to be paid by big businesses, it is going to be paid by small businesses; but that is $630 billion that Americans should not have to pay. As we talked about with many of these drugs like Tamoxifen, the Americans already paid for the drug. We paid to develop the drug. And yet they sell it, here this box of drugs I bought in Munich, Germany, for $59.05. We rounded it off to $60. This drug sells here in Washington, D.C. for $360. That is outrageous. It is indefensible. And the reason that they have to resort to distortions, deceptions, and down right lies is because they cannot defend this chart. They cannot defend the fact that Cipro sells in Germany for $35 and $55 in the United States, that Coumadin sells for $21 in Germany and $89.95 in the United States. Glucophage, $21.95 in the United States, only $5 in Germany. Pravachol sells for $62.96 in Germany but $149.95 here, and the list goes on. The gentleman said the total price for the 10 most commonly prescribed drugs, $373.30 in Munich, Germany. That same group of drugs, same quantities, made in the same FDA-approved facilities sells for $1,039.65 here in the United States. That is indefensible. They do not want to argue this chart. They do not want to argue these numbers, so they resorted to the only thing that is left, and that is to try to scare seniors, try to deceive Members of Congress and somehow distort this whole issue so that it is about safety, it is about abortion, it is about all other kinds of issues; but that is not what it is about. It is about money. It is about real money. Because they believe that $630 billion belongs to them. We believe that $630 billion belongs to Americans. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).