Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think the people who developed this drug, Glucophage, are entitled to be rewarded for it. I believe in that. I believe in intellectual property rights. But I also say why is it we pay so much when the Germans can buy it so cheaply?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think the time has come. Again, as Ronald Reagan said, quoting John Adams, facts are stubborn things. All we really want is the facts. I am not getting into motives. I do not care. I do not care why they do things. To me, that is not my job. My job is to stand up and speak for those people who cannot speak for themselves. When I read that statistic that 29 percent of prescriptions written to senior citizens go unfilled, and I have stood in pharmacies and I have watched them with their little slips and seen the look on their faces. It seems to me that we have an obligation to say on behalf of them that we are not going to just sit here and allow this to go on. This has gone on too long. The worst thing is it is getting worse and worse and worse per year. The difference between what we pay and what the European pays is not getting better; it is getting worse. Shame on us. Shame on the FDA.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think that about says it all. As a matter of fact, let me just close with this. The Congress has spoken. When we voted on this matter in the House the last time, 323 of our colleagues voted with us on this.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. They drop their head and they say, well, maybe I will be back tomorrow. Twenty-nine percent of the prescriptions written to senior citizens go unfilled because they cannot afford them, and they are proud people. How many people, how many women in America cannot afford Tamoxifen? Now, maybe they could afford $60, but $360 starts to get real expensive. And that goes on and on and on. Now, I am not here to say shame on the pharmaceutical industry, but shame on us, because we have the power to change that. One of my favorite Presidents was President Ronald Reagan, and he had some great quotes. One of them he used often was that markets are more powerful than armies. It is time that we open up the markets and say to Americans you have legal access. You ought to be able to go to your local pharmacy, to your local pharmacist, whom you trust, and who is an important part of the health care delivery system, and you ought to be able to go in there and say, I need Tamoxifen. And he ought to be able to say to you, well, listen, I can fill it from my inventory in the United States on the back shelf and your price will be $360; or I can go on line and I can order it for you from a pharmaceutical supply house in Geneva, Switzerland, or Munich, Germany, or Paris, France, or you name the country, as long as they are an industrialized G-7-type country where we can expect and trust the equivalent of their FDAs, as the Canadians have announced; but he ought to be able to go on line for that customer and order that and say, we can have it to you in 3 days for one-sixth of the price.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. In fact, in this ad it says, look how easy Congress has made it for you to save. That is what it says. Congress has spoken. Unfortunately we, put this language into that bill, in the conference committee and at somebody's request that says as long as they can guarantee safety. Well, they cannot guarantee safety on imported strawberries or pork bellies or plantains. We import hundreds and thousands of tons of broccoli a year. They cannot guarantee the safety. According to the FDA's own studies, 2 percent of the fruits and vegetables coming into this country are contaminated with food-borne pathogens, including things like salmonella. Salmonella can kill you. It does kill Americans. Yet what does the FDA do about that? Nothing. But if you try to save $45 on a box of Coumadin, they will come after you like stink on a skunk. There is something wrong with the system. We need to fix it. It is not so much shame on the pharmaceutical industry. It is shame on us. It is time that we make certain that Americans have access to world-class drugs at world market prices. That is what we want. That is what we expect. We will not stop until we get it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I am so honored to be here tonight to pay tribute to our friend, Larry Combest. A lot has already been said, and I do not want to be redundant and repeat some of the things that have been said, but I would like to mention a couple of things. One is that he is probably one of the best dressers in the U.S. Congress. I have been with him at meetings with farmers, and he is always appropriately but the best dressed person there. And I think anybody who knows Larry knows that I am saying exactly the truth. The other thing I should mention about Larry is the first time I ever met him was for a retreat for Republicans at some god-awful Xerox center about 50 miles west of here. It was my first chance to spend any time with Larry, and the one thing that was very obvious to me in our first real meeting and discussion, he is an incredibly good listener. Now, in this town that is a quality that is not developed in many of us, not the way it should be. But Larry is an amazing listener. He listens to what people have to say, and it is reflected in the success that he has had in his congressional career. He came from west Texas. The district that he represents is one of the biggest energy-producing districts in the country, and yet he took the time to listen to our farmers and to other people on the importance of biofuels and ethynyl and biodiesel and came to the conclusion that it made an awful lot of sense long term for our energy policy. He did not put his own parochial interests above what was in the best interests of American agriculture. So much has already been said, but it was because of that deep feeling that he was able to go to the Committee on the Budget a few years ago and get an unprecedented $73.5 billion out of the fiscal year 2001 budget so that we could create that farm bill. And he taught us so much about what it takes to make a farm bill, but it was his character that pushed it all the way through, and I mean that. Because passing a farm bill is much tougher than I ever thought. What he did was he demonstrated one of those things that we need to learn more about here in Washington and that is he was firm on principle but flexible on policy; and, ultimately, it was his vision of this farm bill that really won the day. Now, Larry, we are going to miss you a lot. I am going to miss you more than you can even imagine. We will miss you a lot more than you will miss us. Certainly you deserve a little respite from this rat race. I can only say that I hope that you will not forget us rats. Thank you very much and God bless you.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise again today to talk about the high cost that Americans pay for prescription drugs, particularly relative to the industrialized world. As I have mentioned on the floor before, we believe that Americans should pay their fair share in terms of the cost of the research and development of these miracle drugs. We even feel that it is fair enough that we should subsidize some of the developing countries, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa. We think, however, that it is outrageous that we are required to subsidize the starving Swiss. Let me talk a little bit about what we did in the last 3 weeks. I was in Germany 3 weeks ago, and one of my staffers was able to go to one of the pharmacies at the Munich airport. Most of us know that when we buy things at the airport, that is usually not the cheapest place to buy things; and we went to the pharmacy there at the Munich airport and bought some drugs. Among those we bought was Glucophage. Glucophage for 30 tablets, 850 milligrams, we bought at the Munich airport for $5 American. That same drug at a pharmacy in Minnesota back in my district is not $5 but $29.95. Cipro is a very effective antibiotic made by a German company by the name of Bayer. They came up with Bayer aspirins. They have been around a long time, but Cipro became very important when we went through the anthrax scare here in the Capitol complex. We purchased it at $35.12 for 10 tablets at 250 milligrams. That same package in Minnesota sells for $55; $35 dollars in Germany, $55 in the United States. Actually the story gets worse. Another very popular drug, Zestril, we bought for $25.04 American. It sells in the United States for $59.95, more than double the price for the same drug, and the list gets worse. One of the worst examples is this. This is a drug called Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is a miracle drug. It is probably the best drug ever developed in terms of treating breast cancer. We bought this drug at the Munich airport at the pharmacy there, 60 tablets, 20 milligrams for $59.05 American. This same drug, if we buy it here in pharmacies in Washington, D.C., will sell for $360; $60 in Germany, $360 for exactly the same drug here in the United States. What makes this story even worse is that the taxpayers paid for almost all of the research costs to develop this miracle drug. It was developed essentially by the NIH. The company went out and got the patents, and now Americans are paying again. Many of my colleagues say, well, shame on the pharmaceutical industry; and it is easy to say that, but I do not say shame on the pharmaceutical industry. I say shame on us. We are the policymakers. We are the ones who have created an environment that the pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of; and shame on us for letting this happen, and let me give my colleagues another shame on us. There was research that came out just a few days ago, the first time I had seen it; and what it said was that 29 percent of the prescriptions written to seniors in this country go unfilled because they cannot afford them. Shame on us. We have created an environment where seniors today cannot afford the prescriptions that doctors write for them to save their lives. Shame on us. That is the problem. The answer is open up markets. We have open markets for virtually everything else. The Food and Drug Administration allows hundreds and millions of tons of food to come into our country with virtually no inspection; but if a senior tries to import Tamoxifen to save their lives from Munich, Germany, they are treated as common criminals. Shame on us. The answer is to pass commonsense, reimportation language this year. We are going to be talking about prescription drug benefits under Medicare here in the next several weeks in the Congress; but if we do not start seriously talking about affordable, if we do not talk about what we are going to do to control prices in this whole thing, there is not enough money in the Federal Treasury to pay for that benefit because we know the Congressional Budget Office tells us that over the next 10 years seniors in this country will spend $1.8 trillion on prescriptions. We have allotted $400 billion in this budget resolution over the next 10 years to take care not only of a prescription drug benefit but also to modernize Medicare, which is the right thing to do, and equalize the reimbursements. The bottom line is that there is not enough money in this budget or any budget to pay for these huge disparities. Americans deserve world- class drugs at world market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I come to the well of the House again tonight to talk about an issue that is an enormous issue particularly for seniors and that is the high cost of prescription drugs here in the United States. Today I received a copy of a new book by Katharine Greider, and the title of the book is ``The Big Fix, How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers.'' Ms. Greider has done amazing research in terms of what is happening in the prescription industry here in the United States, and it is not a pretty picture. In fact, one of the most troubling statistics she came up with as she did her research is that 29 percent of the prescriptions written in the United States are not filled because people cannot afford them. And here we have our own FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, which literally is treating law-abiding citizens like common criminals simply because they want to go to a foreign country to buy drugs that they need. Let me give an example. We talked about this before. There is a drug called Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is a miracle drug and I sort of have a love-hate relationship with some of the people in the pharmaceutical industry because Tamoxifen is a miracle drug, and it has saved lots of American women from breast cancer. It is the most effective drug we have found. But the interesting thing is much of the research was paid for by the American taxpayers through the NIH. What is more troubling than that is that we bought this box of Tamoxifen a few weeks ago at the pharmacy at the Munich airport in Germany, and we bought this Tamoxifen for $59.05 American. This same box of drugs in the same label under the same everything, the same dosage, here in Washington, DC, sells for $360; $59.05 in Munich, Germany; $360 in the United States. It is outrageous. Then you hear that 29 percent of Americans fail to have their prescriptions filled because they cannot afford the drugs. Our own FDA is standing between Americans and the drugs that they need. We hear all the time that we have to pay a lot of money for prescription drugs because it is for research. She begins to break down in her book how much actually goes to research. Of the $100 that we might spend for a typical prescription in the United States, use, for example, Lipitor, 35 percent of the cost that you pay is for marketing, advertising and administration; 26 percent is for what they call ``other,'' such as manufacturing, executive pay, worker costs, labor and so forth; 24 percent is pure profit; and only 15 percent actually goes to research. Madam Speaker, as I have said before, I am not here to say, shame on the pharmaceutical industry, although more and more people are. People who are doing the research are saying, shame on the pharmaceutical industry. The truth of the matter is it is shame on us, because we have created an environment where we literally hold American consumers hostage. Imagine, for example, if there were two stores in town. One consistently had dramatically lower prices on the same products, and then there was another store that had dramatically higher prices. But yet your own government said you have to shop at the higher-priced store. In an era with bar-coding technology and all the new technology we can use in terms of counterfeit-proofing these packages, we can come as close as humanly possible in guaranteeing this is, in fact, Tamoxifen, and whether you get it from Geneva, Switzerland, or Munich, Germany, or the local drugstore, your local pharmacist ought to have the ability to shop around and get you the best price. Finally, let me explain how big a problem this is. Our own Congressional Budget Office tells us over the next 10 years seniors, just seniors, will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs. Conservatively we are spending 35 percent more than the rest of the G-7 countries on average. Thirty-five percent of $1.8 trillion works out to $630 billion. Then some people say we cannot afford a prescription drug benefit. Of course we cannot afford a prescription drug benefit if we make American consumers pay the highest prices in the world, not just a little higher. Do not take my word for it. There are several groups that are now doing the research. I do not know why the FDA does not do the research, because a drug you cannot afford is neither safe nor effective. Americans deserve world-class drugs at world-market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the House again tonight to talk about something that needs to be resolved, and we in Congress need to get serious about it, and that is the high price that Americans pay for prescription drugs relative to the rest of the world. And we see this chart here, and again I do not ask people to take my word for this. I would ask them to do their own research, but the interesting thing is millions of Americans are doing that research for themselves, and they are coming to exactly the same conclusion, and that is Americans pay far more than anyone else in the industrialized world for the same drugs. Let us look at this chart. These numbers are average numbers, and they are from the year 2002. The source is the Life Extension Foundation, but there are other groups doing the same kind of research, getting essentially the same results. Let us look at some of the drugs that we buy in large quantities in the United States. Cipro, we all know about Cipro after the anthrax scare. It is a very effective antibiotic. It is made by a German company called Bayer. We in the United States usually call it Bayer, Bayer Aspirin, for example. In the United States, the average price for a 30-day supply is about $88. That same drug can be bought in Canada for $53.55, but in Germany where they make the drug, they sell it for $40.75. Going on down the list, here is another very important drug. It is a miracle drug for many people suffering with diabetes called Glucophage. In the United States, according to Life Extension Foundation, the average price for a 30-day supply is $124.65. That same drug can be bought in Canada in the same dosage for $26.47, and in Germany they can buy it for $22. Let us look at Norvasc, another very popular drug here in the United States; $67 here, $46 in Canada and only $33 in Europe. Mr. Speaker, I am not here to say shame on the pharmaceutical industry, and perhaps I should, but the truth of the matter is it is shame on us. We are requiring Americans to pay anywhere from 30 to 300 percent more. Last week I had down on the floor a little box of some drugs, a very powerful and wonderful drug. It is called to tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is perhaps the best anti-breast cancer drug ever discovered, but let me share this. In the United States, and we checked it out at the local pharmacy here in Washington, for 100 tablets, 20 milligrams, the price was $360. We can buy that same package of drugs in Munich, Germany for $59.05; $60 there, $360 here, six times more that Americans are required to pay for this life-saving drug. That is wrong, and we should do something about it. Let me talk about the law because many people, particularly our friends at the FDA, are hiding behind the law. This is the actual law that they use to keep Americans from importing FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities, and here is what it says: The Secretary of the Treasury shall deliver to the Secretary of Health and Human Services upon his request samples of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics which are being imported or offered for import to the United States, giving notice thereof to the owner or consignee who may appear before the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and some more legal goop, but here is what it comes down to. There are three criteria. The first is, if it appears from the examination of such samples or otherwise, that one such article has been manufactured, processed or packed under unsanitary conditions. We cannot say that about these drugs. Or, two, such article is forbidden or restricted in sale in this country in which it was produced or from which it was exported. These are legal drugs in both the United States and in the other countries we are talking about. Or, three, and this is the last one, such article is adulterated, misbranded or in violation of section 355 of this title. These drugs are legal. We are not talking about bringing in illegal drugs; we are talking about legal drugs from countries that are FDA approved. It is not shame on them; it is shame on us for letting this situation exist. Let me just tell you what this amounts to. Our own Congressional Budget Office tells us that, over the next 10 years, seniors in the United States of America will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs. Simple arithmetic, do the math yourself, we believe, and I think this is being very conservative, if we simply open up markets, as we do with every other product in this country, just open up those markets, we can save a minimum of 35 percent; 35 percent of $1.8 trillion is $630 billion. Shame on us. We are going to be talking here on the House floor in the next several weeks about a prescription drug benefit, maybe under Medicare, maybe under Medicaid. Clearly there are a lot of seniors falling through the cracks. But the issue is not so much coverage; the issue is affordability. We need to do something about it. I am going to introduce a bill later this week. I hope my colleagues will join me in cosponsoring that bill.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about an issue that I have talked about on this House floor before, and that is the high cost of prescription drugs here in the United States compared to the rest of the industrialized world, but before I do I want to just come back to something my colleague just was talking about in terms of the tax relief. I am going to support the tax relief package because I understand that there are only three things people can do with their money. One is they can spend it. Two, they can save it, or three, they can send it to the government in the form of taxes. They can only spend it, save it or pay taxes. That is the only three things people can do, and we know that when the economy is soft, at least most of us believe, that if we allow people to keep their own money, that will grow the economy faster than having them send it into the Federal Government. I want to talk about something else tonight because cutting taxes is not the only way that we can help the economy, and on this first chart I say if we want to allow Americans to keep and spend over $600 billion during the next 10 years, here is a good place to start. We have got the picture of some prescription drug containers. That is right, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, American seniors will spend over $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs over the next 10 years. A conservative estimate would be that we could save 35 percent by allowing free markets to work. Thirty-five percent of $1.8 trillion equates to $630 billion. Now, if my colleagues doubt that, just look at this chart, and this chart is available on my Web site at gil.house.gov, and just check the number for yourself, but let me pull out a few of these. A common drug we all know about is Cipro. It is made by a German company named Bayer. They also make aspirin. Cipro in the United States, it sells for $87.99. This is according to the Life Extension Foundation, but on average, last year, Cipro sold in the United States, a 30-day supply, for about $87.99. The average price in Canada for those same drugs, $53.55 and in Europe, $40.75, less than half the price in Europe for the same drug. Let us look at GLUCOPHAGE, a very commonly prescribed drug for diabetes, in many respects a miracle drug. In the United States, average price for 30-day supply, $124.65. That same drug sells in Canada for $26.47, and in Europe the average price is $22. We go on down the list, we look at drugs like Premarin, Premarin in the United States, $55; in Europe, $8.95. Zocor, very commonly prescribed drug, today $123 in the United States; $28 in Europe. Do the arithmetic. I think we are being very conservative. At the bottom of this chart I have something from one of my favorite Presidents, President Ronald Reagan. He said, ``Markets are more powerful than armies.'' Tax cuts are great, but if we want to help seniors lower prescription drug prices and allow Americans to keep and spend $630 billion of their money, let us open markets now. Americans deserve world class drugs at world market prices. I was in Germany not too long ago, and we actually bought some drugs. This is a very commonly prescribed, a very effective drug against women's breast cancer. This drug was bought at the Munich airport pharmacy for $59.05 American. This same box of drugs bought here in Washington, D.C., sells for $366. What makes matters worse, this drug was developed, almost all of the research expenses were paid for by the American taxpayers. I think Americans ought to pay their fair share for the price of research and development for all of these miracle drugs. I think most Americans believe that, but we should not be required to subsidize the starving Swiss. The time has come to open up markets, to give Americans access to world class drugs at world class prices. We can do that in the next several weeks. I need my colleagues' help. Let us all work together to make certain that Americans have access to those drugs at prices that they can afford.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about the issue of the higher cost of prescription drugs in the United States. The gentlewoman who just preceded me who was talking about tax relief, I think I agree with some of the points she raised. When we talk about tax cuts, what we are really talking about is allowing people to keep more of what they earn. In soft economic times, I happen to believe it makes sense to allow people to keep more of what they earn. As you see on this chart, which you can find on my Web site, we start by saying if we want to allow Americans to keep and spend over $600 billion during the next 10 years. Here is a good place to start. It has got a picture of prescription drug capsules here. The next page says, ``That's right. According to the CBO,'' that is the Congressional Budget Office, ``American seniors will spend over $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years on prescription drugs.'' This is a conservative estimate. We are going to show you a chart in a minute that says that we could save 35 percent by allowing free markets to work. Thirty-five percent of $1.8 trillion translates to $630 billion. Let me show you this chart. This is not my chart. I have a number of independent experts around the country that have been working on this a lot longer than I have, they are a lot smarter than I am, but they have actually done some of the comparisons in terms of what we as Americans pay for prescription drugs compared to the rest of the world. This is a chart by a group called the Life Extension Foundation out of Florida. They have been studying this for more than a decade. Here are some of the figures in terms of the prices we pay versus what Canadian consumers pay and what European consumers pay for the same drugs. Let us look at the top right here. We have Augmentin. In the United States, a 30-day supply sells for about $55.50. That same drug in Canada, made in the same plant under the same FDA approval, sells for $12. In Europe it sells for $8.75. Cipro. We learned a lot about Cipro last year when we had anthrax here in the Capitol building. It is made by a German drug company called Bayer; we usually call it Bayer, Bayer aspirin. Cipro in the United States sells for $87.99 for a 30-day supply. That same drug in Canada sells for $53.55. Over in Germany it sells for $40.75. My father takes a drug called Coumadin. Here in the United States the average price for a 30-day supply of Coumadin is $64.88. That same drug, again made under the same FDA approval in the same FDA-approved plant, sells in Canada for $24.94. Over in Europe the average price is $15.80. Madam Speaker, as you look at this list, it just becomes very, very aggravating, when you see how much we pay. Glucophage, an amazing drug we sell here in the United States, the average price, according to the Life Extension Foundation, the average price in the United States, the average price, is $124 here. The average price in Canada for the same drug, same dosage, is $26.47. Over in Europe the same drug sells for $22. Glucophage. A couple of weeks ago I and one of my staffers were in Germany. We had the opportunity to actually do some shopping of our own. We bought a drug called Tamoxifen. It is amazing in terms of being one of the most amazing drugs we have developed in the United States. Let me just talk about the drug itself, because it was developed largely with American taxpayers' money. Tamoxifen is the most effective drug against women's breast cancer that we have developed, but the American taxpayers paid for most of the research costs. This drug in the United States at a pharmacy here in Washington, D.C. for a 3-month supply just like this sells for about $360. In Munich, Germany, we bought it a week and a half ago for $59.05, the same drug. Now, some people would say shame on the pharmaceutical industry; but I have to say shame on us, because we have allowed this environment to be created. It is not shame on them, because they are only exploiting a market opportunity that we have allowed them. The answer is open markets. Many years ago President Ronald Reagan said that markets are more powerful than armies. My time has expired, but I will be back in coming nights to talk about this issue and how Members can help solve this problem.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, with 30 seconds, I will be very brief. Mr. Chairman, there is a term ``illegal diversion'' used twice in section 307. I just want to make clear that the authors have the intent to keep us from reimporting drugs that are being donated for AIDS in central Africa; that this will not be used to block what we may do in the future in terms of allowing Americans to have access to drugs from other countries.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a proud lifetime Member of the National Auctioneers Association. We want to recognize today National Auctioneers Day, which takes place annually on the third Saturday of April. This year it fell on April 19. And I suppose some of my colleagues are wondering can he really do that? Yes, I do a lot of auctions even today: ``And now 35, I'll give you 40, now 5. Anybody bid 45? I'll give you 50.'' I have had the privilege of auctioneering events to raise money for the American Cancer Society, the Boys and Girls Club, Safari Club, Ducks Unlimited, the list goes on and on. As a matter of fact, since I was elected to Congress, I have raised almost $2 million for charity. Every year billions of dollars are poured into our economy from auctions of estates, of vehicles, thoroughbred horses, antiques and other goods. And auctions of homes and other real estate are increasingly more important as more and more realtors and homeowners see the advantages of selling by auction as their first choice. On Auctioneer's Day this year, auctioneers across the country held a special fund-raiser for the Saint Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, the chosen charity of the National Auctioneers Association. Auctioneers are generous and patriotic Americans, and I rise to salute their contributions to our great country.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster said, ``God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.'' What you see here is a banner that was displayed and then signed by thousands of my constituents 2 weeks ago at a ``support the troops'' rally in Rochester, Minnesota. Now, I know rallies like this have been conducted all over the United States, but this particular banner is on its way with me to Germany and will be displayed to the brave Americans who are in the hospitals at Ramstein Air Force Base, and then hopefully it will make it from there down to the gulf so that the soldiers who are serving there can see this banner and know that people in Southeastern Minnesota as well as people all over the United States support them. No nation has given more in the defense of liberty than we Americans. From Valley Forge to Gettysburg, from Normandy to this very day, we have demonstrated what President Kennedy meant when he said that, ``we will pay any price, we will bear any burden, we will meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, and shoulder any burden to keep the lamp of liberty burning brightly throughout the world.'' We have all been heartened by the stories coming out of Iraq. Many of us have read of the rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch as recounted by Central Command briefer Major General Gene Renuart. According to General Renuart, a Special Ops soldier called to Private Lynch as he entered the room saying, Jessica Lynch, we are United States soldiers. We are here to protect you and take you home. As he walked over and took off his helmet, she looked up to him and said, I am an American soldier too. But not as many of us have heard the story of the recovery of the remains of the soldiers believed to have been soldiers killed there. And I quote, ``At the same time,'' Renuart recounted, ``the team was led to a burial site where, in fact, they did find a number of bodies that they believed could be Americans missing in action. They did not have shovels in order to dig up those graves so they dug them up with their hands. And they wanted to do it very rapidly so they could race the sun and be off the site before the sun came up; a great testament to the will and desire of coalition forces to bring their own home.'' They did dig them up with their hands and raced the sun. On a cold and windy Sunday afternoon just 2 weeks ago, the people of Southern Minnesota gathered to send a simple message. We sang songs, heard speeches, read letters, and most of us got a little misty eyed as proud parents held pictures of their sons and daughters wearing the uniforms of each branch of our military. Our purpose was simple. We wanted to say thank you for their service; and, second, we wanted them to know that we stand with them wherever they may be serving. All took their places in that long line, that long gray line that has never failed us. The images of the Iraqi citizens cheering our Armed Forces make us happy and proud, but somehow not surprised. Once the Commander in Chief gave the order to liberate Iraq, most of us knew that the result and those images were inevitable. On behalf of all who have attended rallies, and especially those who signed this banner, let me say first that we mourn with those families who have borne the heaviest price of this battle. No politician can adequately salve wounds that will never completely heal. The best that we can say is that we will never forget. To all those, who, like PFC Lynch, are ``American soldiers too,'' and to all our sailors, airmen and Marines, we say thank you. And we stand with you. May God continue to bless and protect our Nation and all who defend her.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about an issue that everyone should be aware of and I think more and more Americans are becoming concerned about and that is the rising cost of health care here in the United States. Some of the estimates this year, and we are talking to small businesspeople in my district, they are looking at increases in the cost of their health care of anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent and some even more than that. One of the ideas that has been around for a number of years in terms of controlling the costs of health care in the United States is the concept of medical savings accounts. This is a plan that really goes back a long ways. As a matter of fact, in my district where we have an awful lot of farm families, they in effect have had medical savings accounts for a very long time. What they do is they essentially use their checking account as the medical savings account, but the principle is relatively simple and that is where people can put money away, either through their employer or individually, into a medical savings account to pay those ongoing medical bills. At the same time, they buy a catastrophic insurance policy that will pay those catastrophic expenses if they should come down with cancer, if they should need a major surgery, something like that. Catastrophic insurance is relatively inexpensive. And so in the last several years we have allowed more and more of the employers to do these medical savings accounts, to set up these programs on a pretax basis so that they get the advantages of the Tax Code. But there was one major, glaring error and omission from the legislation we passed in the past here in the Congress and that is that public employees could not participate in these. And so I have been talking to my public employees back in Minnesota. They would very much like to participate in medical savings accounts for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is it is a way that they can begin to save money for long-term care, because we are now beginning to realize we are all getting older. I happen to be 52 years old. I was born in 1951. There were more babies born in 1951 than any other year, we are the peak of the baby boomers, and we are looking at this thing and saying, are there ways we can begin to put money away for long-term care. One of the ways you can do that is with medical savings accounts. But it is a glaring omission and it is terribly unfair to say that private employees in the private markets can go ahead and have access to these medical savings accounts but public employees cannot. And so today I am introducing along with my colleagues the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline) the Minnesota MSA Empowerment Act of 2003. Essentially what this bill will do is allow public employees on a pilot program basis to have access to the same kind of programs that private employees have access to. It is a very good bill. It is a way for us to actually find out just how well these MSAs will work, especially with public employees. I am confident that they will work if they are given a chance. This is a pilot program just for Minnesota to demonstrate that MSAs will work for the consumer, they will work to help reduce the cost of health care and ultimately make it possible so people can begin to set aside dollars long-term for long- term care. This is a good piece of legislation. I hope the people of the appropriate policy committees will give it a fairing hearing and if they will I am confident that ultimately this will become law. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this important legislation.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is absolutely right. What is being done by some of the big pharmaceutical companies is nothing short of shameful. I also say shame on us. I said the other day that Teddy Roosevelt must be rolling in his grave, the Republican President who believed in breaking up the trusts, in enforcing competition, because he understood, as President Reagan understood, that markets are more powerful than armies. Mr. Speaker, it is time for this Congress to live up to its responsibilities. It is time for Congress to allow Americans to have access to world-class drugs at world-market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I came to the well of the House, and I said that the FDA had declared war on American consumers. Now the battle is joined. Mr. Speaker, I want to share a brochure, a little brochure that my staff and I have put together. On the cover it says, ``If we want to allow Americans to keep and spend over $600 billion during the next 10 years, here is a good place to start.'' Then at the bottom you have a picture of some pharmaceutical capsules. Then if you open the brochure, the second page says, ``That is right. According to the CBO,'' that is congressional language for the Congressional Budget Office, they are our official bean counters, ``According to the CBO, American seniors will spend over $1.8 trillion.'' By ``seniors'' they mean only those people who are 65 years of age or older. So over the next 10 years, the CBO tells us that seniors alone will spend over $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs. Now, a conservative estimate, not done by me, but by experts who are a whole lot smarter than I am, a conservative estimate would be that we can save 35 percent by allowing free markets to work. Again, I am not particularly good at math, but 35 percent times $1.8 trillion works out to $630 billion. Here we have a chart. This is the latest chart. I have actually had in the last 4 years four different charts. I do not use my own numbers, although we have actually done our own research to confirm that these are very accurate in terms of the average prices that Americans pay, and these are some of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. Let us start right at the top, a drug called Augmentin. Here in the United States, according to the Life Extension Foundation that has been doing research on this for more than a decade, the average price for a 30-day supply in the United States is $55.50. That same drug sells in Canada for about $12, and it sells in Europe for an average price of only $8.75. There are differences in the value of currency, but the net effect is that Americans pay that much more for the same drug. Look at another drug, a drug made by a German company called Bayer. We usually call it Bayer, Bayer Aspirin. Cipro became real popular last year when we had anthrax here in these buildings, because it is one of the most effective drugs for things like anthrax. But Cipro in the United States sells for an average of $87.99 for a month's supply. In Canada it sells for $55.53 cents, and in Europe, in Germany, where they make it, they sell it for $40.75. The list goes on. Let me talk about a drug called Coumadin. My 85- year-old father takes Coumadin. Fortunately, because he worked for a union all of his life, worked as a union worker all of his life, under his contract he has prescription drug coverage, so it does not cost him $64.88, which is what it costs the average American consumer in the United States if they do not have prescription drug coverage; $64.88 in the United States, $24.94 in Canada, and only $15.80 in Europe. The list goes on. This is reflective, and it goes on and on and on. Down here, I put a famous quote by one of my favorite Presidents, President Ronald Reagan. He said, ``Markets are more powerful than armies.'' At the end of the day, you cannot hold markets back; but unfortunately, that is what is happening in the United States. Now, I have no qualms with the big pharmaceutical industry in the sense that they ought to be able to sell their drugs for what they want to sell them for. But they should not be allowed to hide behind the FDA to do it. So I do not say shame on them as much as I say shame on us. It is we the Congress, we the policymakers here in the United States that have allowed these disparities to happen. Finally, we are having a big debate right now about tax cuts, how much should we give in tax cuts. Is it going to be $625 billion or $535 billion or $375 billion? Tax cuts are great, particularly at a time when the economy is soft. But if we really want to help seniors, if we want to lower prescription drug prices and allow Americans to keep and spend $630 billion of their money over the next 10 years, let us open markets now. Finally, it just says simply Americans deserve world-class drugs at world-class prices. All we are asking for is open markets. All we want is what German pharmacists have the right to do, and that is buy drugs where they can get them the cheapest. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to one of my heroes. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) held a hearing last week, and it was one of the best hearings I have ever participated in.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, a new drug war is starting. The first shots have been fired by the FDA. Those shots are being fired at American seniors. This is a dumb fight, dumbly fought. The Bush administration, which claims to support open markets, must decide whether it will stand with American consumers or with the new elitist drug lords that run the multinational pharmaceutical industry. The FDA has decided to use the iron fist of the Federal Government to defend the abusive monopolistic practices of those drug lords. This is a policy and political mistake of historic proportions. Who is the FDA really trying to protect? Surely Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 961, the Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act. This bipartisan bill is the result of efforts to bring farmers, sportsmen's groups, conservation organizations, and government agencies together to develop a strategy to monitor water quality in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. H.R. 961 provides a coordinated, public-private approach to reducing nutrient and sediment losses in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Relying on existing federal, state and local programs, the bill establishes a water quality monitoring network and an integrated computer-modeling program. These monitoring and modeling efforts will provide the data needed to make scientifically and economically sound conservation decisions that will benefit southern Minnesota and the Nation.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I just want to correct something that our colleague from Texas just said. He said that the only way to do this is to deal with it in this bill. This bill is simply a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning for another week. There will be plenty of time for this kind of debate. I think they will find plenty of support on this side of the aisle for the first responders. I do not think there is anybody over here who does not appreciate what the first responders do. But the fact of the matter is that the bill that is before us today is a continuing resolution to keep the government open. I think we all agree that that ought to happen. Nobody here, not on that side, not on this side, wants the government to shut down. So the idea that it has to be done on this bill or it will not get done is simply not true.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, well, the good news is this year the House and the Senate are under the same management. We do expect thorough debates on all of the appropriation bills this year; and more importantly, we expect for the first time in a year and a half they will actually have a budget resolution in the Senate that we can work with and that will make life easier for both of us.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, obviously there will be debate when the matter comes before the House on the bill coming back from the Senate. I suspect there will be additional debate when we take up the budget resolution and the appropriation bills for the next fiscal year. There will be adequate time both in that year and in this year to have that debate, but that is not the debate for this afternoon.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.