The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio ) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the President's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Thompson, who has previously said he will not allow the reimportation of less expensive FDA-approved drugs from Canada or any other country, deeming them unsafe, of course his assistant secretary, Mr. Hubbard, when questioned before a congressional committee, could not document one single instance of safety problems with Canadian drugs, yet can document thousands of problems with the supply chain here in the United States because of a virtually uncontrolled wholesale drug market.

So it really is not the issue of safety. It is the issue of the profitability of the pharmaceutical industry. They make their profits all in the United States, and that allows them to sell drugs very cheaply in other countries, and they say that is necessary to protect their investment in new technologies and new drugs.

I certainly want to see new drugs and new technologies developed, but why should Americans only pay for those investments? And that is the system they are attempting to perpetuate, and there is also of course the issue that it is only recently that the pharmaceutical industry has been allowed to advertise on television and now they are spending upwards of 6, $7 billion a year on promotion, which of course drives up the cost of drugs, and I am not quite sure of the value what the little purple pill ads or many of those other ads on television are, and I think consumers would be happy to consult with their doctors rather than 30-second ads if they could see the price of their drugs go down. Drugs are going up at about 10 times the current rate of inflation on an annual basis. They are simply not affordable for most Americans.

So yesterday Secretary Thompson announced that the Maginot Line that this administration has created to defend the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, the Maginot Line that said this was an issue of safety, Americans should not be allowed to reimport lifesaving drugs at a fraction of the cost, that they are available in this country, he predicted it will crumble. He predicted that we will see the reimportation of drugs.

Why is that? What happened to his safety concerns? I think the safety concern that has been elevated in their minds right now is the reelection of George Bush who read the polls. Eighty-five percent of the people cannot understand how it is free trade when we export American jobs, but there is no free trade issue when we prohibit the importation of less expensive pharmaceuticals from Canada, our neighbor, that our FDA approved.

And then today in a further indication that their Maginot Line, their protection of this industry, is crumbling quickly, we have two major drug chains, CVS and Walgreens, who have both come out in favor of reimportation. They do not want to see individuals reimporting. They want to protect their businesses. They want to see that they and other wholesale purchasers can go to Canada where it they can purchase drugs more cheaply from a Canadian wholesaler by far than they can purchase them directly from a pharmaceutical company here in the United States. As big as they are, as much as they buy, the price they are charged is significantly higher than the price at which these drugs are sold in Canada.

So the bottom line here is we have people in this country suffering. They cannot afford the drugs they need. Seniors in my district dividing pills in half, couples sitting down at beginning of the month and deciding who will get their pills this month and who will not, despite their jeopardy to their health, and the Bush administration says they are worried about the health and safety of Oregonians or the American public. Their health and safety is definably hurt by the fact they cannot afford lifesaving drugs. And since they cannot document a single instance of problems from Canada, then let us allow Americans to reimport drugs from Canada, and I would be happy if they could do that through their pharmacies because pharmacies are a key part of this chain and consumer information.

The other thing we could do, and of course the Bush administration is adamantly opposed to but who knows, maybe they will change there too, is negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of the American people like every other civilized democracy on earth does for all their citizens. There is no other country on earth that allows the pharmaceutical industry to leverage these extraordinary extortionate prices for lifesaving drugs out of their citizens. Only the Government of the United States. But, amazingly, the Bush administration got a clause inserted in the so-called Medicare prescription drug benefit that prohibits the government from negotiating lower drug prices, prohibits the government from negotiating, not mandating, negotiating lower drug prices; unlike every other civilized democracy on earth; unlike the private insurance industry which can and does negotiate discounts; unlike the Veterans Administration, which can and does and gets a good deal for our vets, negotiates discounts; and unlike what we mandate in Medicaid.

But they are saying, no, we cannot do that elsewhere. There would be too much market power, meaning it would bring down the price too much. And then what will happen to the industry? The industry will then have to drive a little tougher deal with all these other countries. Instead of just saying, Oh, they will not pay, you will have to pay, everybody would share the cost of the development of new drugs and Americans could have access at lower prices.