because of you." i screamed it. >> this is because of you! >> i think i was representing four years of angst and anxiety and anger. many of us are this coming from a mile away. i think i represented millions of americans who felt the same way. at that very moment the entire country, including myself recognized the fragility of our democracy. i have great appreciation for the traditions of congress. i don't like the violated, but i don't regret it. it is what i was feeling and it was four years of pent up anxiety about what was transpiring in front of our eyes. >> this week you will hear from democrat jamie raskin to maryland, republican brian fitzpatrick of pennsylvania. january 6: views on the house,

sunday night attendant like eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to washington journal. president biden pushing an effort to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs in the u.s. he is calling on congress to help him. the cost of many prescription drugs is outpacing the general pace of inflation in the u.s. and making it harder for americans to get the care they need. many pharmaceutical companies say the federal government should keep its hands off their industry, saying the free market and capitalism should prevail like in other industries. that is our question for you. which of the federal role be in lowering prescription drug prices?

we will open up regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number is (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number is (202) 748-8001. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading social media. facebook at facebook.com/c-span, on twitter @cspanwj and you can always follow us on instagram @cspanwj. president biden came out on thursday to talk about lowering the cost of prescription drugs and urging congress to take action on reducing those prices. here is what president biden had to say thursday. [video clip] >> there are a lot of things almost every american can agree on. i can safely say that all of us,

whatever our background or our age or where we live, can agree that prescription drug prices are outrageously expensive in america. today, i would like to talk about how we are going to help millions of americans save money and ease their burdens by lowering the cost of prescription drugs. let me start by acknowledging the groundbreaking and lifesaving work that many pharmaceutical companies are doing. look no further than the vaccines they are manufacturing and delivering that are helping us beat this pandemic and save lives, but we can make a distinction between developing these breakthroughs and jacking up prices on a range of medications for everyday diseases and conditions. right now, here in america, we pay the highest prescription drug cost of any developed nation in the world. let me say that again. any developed nation in the world.

about two to three times what other countries pay. host: let's see what president biden is actually proposing in his proposal that came out of the white house. under president biden's prescription drug price proposal, it would allow medicare to negotiate drug prices. it would cap the beneficiary's out-of-pocket cost. it would penalize drug companies that raise prices faster than inflation. it would allow states to import lower-cost drugs from canada and accelerate the development and update of generic drugs. that is the proposal president biden came out with on thursday to help lower the cost of prescription drugs. what do you think the federal role should be on this issue? let's start with howard, who is calling from indiana. howard, good morning. caller: good morning. i think the legislation is a

good start, the proposed legislation, for bringing us to universal health care. i would remind everybody that biden advocates, and i agree with him, the view of health care as a right available to all citizens, so i think this is the first step to get there. ultimately, i think we need to get to a single-payer system where the patients are never involved in the payment loop. patients cannot bargain for health care. we have no leverage, so governments should own the payment string. hospitals, clinics will be private enterprises, but it should be single-payer. it will streamline the process significantly and the government has the negotiating power to negotiate the best price. host: what would you say to those pharmaceutical representatives who say that their industry should be treated like all other industries in

america? they should have the right to set the prices where the market can bear it. it is a free-market society. why not set the prices they know they can get? caller: that is an argument for a commodity type of market, where customers have an -- have availability to competitors, can make a bargain for choice. you don't have that in any aspect of health care. health care is not like any other market economy. we cannot let pharmaceutical companies get away with it. companies do not -- individual patients do not choose their pharmaceutical. their doctors do. so a patient is not a customer like a typical customer who makes a decision and evaluates all trade-offs. patients don't have that ability. that is my answer. thank you. host: let's go to james, calling

from aberdeen, south dakota. james, good morning. caller: good morning. yes. i have to disagree with him. that sounds more like a socialist government. this is a capitalist republican constitution and that's what this country is built on, and if you take all the clinics and everything else that built themselves fairly, i would trust them more than the government trying to solve my problems. host: james, a lot of people we will probably hear from this morning will say we need these drugs to survive and we cannot afford them. the government could step in -- government should step in because this is a life or death situation. your response?

caller: what obama said when he was president, he said sometimes we cannot do everything, and you might just have to have the pill. in other words, you are going to die. host: you think the government should sit back and let people die because they can afford their medicine? caller: yeah. they are saying we cannot afford it all, so we cannot do it all for you, but we are a capitalist country. what it was built on in the beginning. and that's how we got to be the greatest country. and there's a lot of different hospitals and place different places -- please -- in fact, i got out of the hill

--[no audio] -- caller: my doctors prescribed is made by astrazeneca. it costs me five dollars a -- it costs me $550 a vial. when you get the same thing from india. this is crazy.

research in this country is done by the nih and that is funded by the taxpayers. there is no country in this world, like you said, that has no control on drug prices. there has to be some price controls for the benefit of all people. there are many people who cannot afford drugs. i have been to pharmacy a sailor ceiling -- succeed. thank you. host: during -- caller: my husband is a

severe diabetic and he was put on a new medication and we are having to pay $555 for 30 pills. and we didn't have insurance. that is tough, along with your mortgage and household bills, etc. i think, personally, that president biden is more looking into and dealing with the infrastructure deal. i think this high medication problem is just stuff someone through on his desk. he is looking over, will deal with it. just like he promised the $15 per hour for restaurant workers,

etc., which hasn't happened, but yes, i hope they can, somebody in washington, help us to lower our prices on med. thank you. host: the proposal that president biden is pushing is actually part of the reconciliation bill that the democrats are trying to push through congress. the new york times has a little bit on that process. "the president was pushing an open door. congressional democrats have already said they want to include all three measures in the so-called reconciliation bill that the house and senate committees -- the finance committee will be a central part of the debate when it comes to lowering health care costs and making health care available to more families. ron wyden of oregon said, as democrats unveiled a

blueprint that will allow them to pass the legislation without a republican vote, democrats have been pushing most of the measures for years, meeting with fierce opposition from the industry and republican leaders -- but donald j. trump broke with the republican orthodoxy in 2016 when he railed against the drug lobby and vowed to use medicare users negotiating power. so the proposal that president biden came out with on thursday is scheduled to be part of the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint democrats are trying to push through congress after the infrastructure bill. let's go back to our phone lines and talk to crystal, calling

from wilkes-barre, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. when you asked the question this morning, i had to call immediately. i went to cvs to fill the prescription i have each month and it was $28 when i first got it filled. yesterday, it was $120. i told the pharmacist, i think you are making a mistake, so she checked the computer. she went under the discount card. it was $139, but under medicare, my medicare prescription plan, it was $138 and i could not believe it. i cannot even get the pill because of the price increase.

i said, is it that much? she said, yeah. call them. she printed something out to show that i paid this amount last month. i could not even afford to get it filled, so i think biden is doing a great thing to lower this cost. this is ridiculous at this point, that you cannot even get your prescription filled because it went up that much, so i like biden. i like what he is doing for the middle class and those of us who cannot afford these drugs, so thank you for bringing up this topic this morning. have a great day. host: the stories we are hearing this morning are reflected in the polls being taken about prescription drug costs in the u.s. here is a pull from the kaiser family foundation that says about three in 10 americans say they have not taken their medicines because of the cost.

i will show you the pole, where it says 19% of the people polled in the last 12 months say they have not filled a prescription for medicine because they cannot afford it. others, about 18%, say they have taken and over-the-counter drug instead. 12% say they have cut pills in half or skipped doses. and almost one third, 29%, say they they have -- say that they have done at least one of those things above because they cannot afford their medicine. again, our question for you this morning is what should be the federal role in lowering prescription drug costs? let's go to david, calling from monks corner, south carolina. caller: good morning. i hope you do not mind if i address the bigger picture of

the government's role. i believe that the insurance industry is a non-value-added service. it is an extra cost that does not need to be there when it comes to public dollars. i think there needs to be a two-tier system. it would be wrong to ban private health and associated industry, everything it has, but we also have to remember that, in response to an earlier caller, medicine is not quite free enterprise because the supply of health care is limited by the government so, through limited numbers of seats in medical schools, limited numbers of schools, and the certificate of need process, where you cannot just go set up shop like you can a garage. so there is a limited surprise. therefore you will have higher

prices and an increased demand situation. evidence of that is when a number of doctors cannot meet the needs of the people they have delegated, certain procedures and things people were not licensed to do in the past, and we have seen a huge growth in the nurse practitioner and physician assistant industry to keep the number of physicians low for price reasons, but there needs to be public dollars spent on health care in the non-fee-for-service salary basis for doctors to eliminate the fee-for-service incentive for unnecessary charges and for covering legal risk, so a great number of tests are done in the case of malpractice for legal protection. if that was eliminated for public health care providers and they worked on a salary without fee-for-service and eliminate

third-party payment, the public dollars could be done much more efficiently, much the way medicine was done in the -- host: let's go to james, calling from murphreesboro, tennessee. james, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes. go ahead, james. caller: drug companies are just getting rich and some of these pills cost more money than anyone can expect to pay except for people who have money. you have people calling in talking about capitalism and how everything was great. well, it was not built that way. it was built -- it was built on genocide, murder and slavery.

the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. thank you. host: kathleen in indianola, mississippi, good morning. caller: good morning. the reason i am calling, i am disabled, but i still get social security, ssi, medicare, medicaid, wix, united states department of agriculture. i used to get $15 a month, but now i get over $190, but when they added the united states department of agriculture, i called medicare.gov. they told me i had to pay $1400 before any surgery. last year, you know, everything was shut down because of covid-19. this year, the hospital is full, so we are sitting at home. i just don't know.

children back to school, but most schools are shut down lake greenwood, greenville, because of covid, the delta variant. we are scared. i mean, we are still wearing our masks. we got vaccinated. we may have to go get a third shot, but don't give up on mississippi. host: president biden actually spoke about the need for medicare to be able to negotiate prescription drug prices in his statement this week. here is what president biden had to say. [video clip] >> there has been long been talk -- i mean, for a long time, since the days when i was in the senate -- about giving medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices. medicare takes care of millions. my plan will allow that. every other type of health care service, from the cost of a

doctor, how much the doctor can charge for a visit, hospital visit, crutches, we -- wheelchairs, medicare is allowed to negotiate. they will say we will pay no more than the following amount for those things. the only thing medicare is not allowed to negotiate our prices for prescription drugs. my plan gets rid of that prohibition. the proposal i made while i was running for president is that medicare should negotiate drug prices across the board. congress is currently debating a more narrow vision, letting medicare negotiate some of the most expensive drugs, particularly from those companies that don't face competition for that drug. we are going to provide competition through medicare. medicare is going to negotiate a fair price. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are

seeing about the government -- the federal role in lowering prescription drug prices. here's a post from facebook that says "investigate why prescription drugs cost more in the u.s. than anywhere else. i have never heard a good explanation. why? possibly because there isn't one." another tweet that says "none of the drugs you buy should be made overseas. we are seeing things like nasal spray absent from shelves. stop letting china make what americans need." another tweet that says "i believe the federal government has a role -- doctors and companies make such a profit." another tweet that says "i am concerned when the federal government steps in to regulate costs. if they lower costs, will companies stop research and

development?" a text that says "we want lower drug prices. we need to vote people who rail against lower drug prices out of office. those people are in the pockets of the drug manufacturers." one last text that says "the highest cost of prescription drugs is a big problem, but the federal government should not get involved setting prices in a free market. however, neither should they permit conglomerate businesses to lobby and block research and development of generic medications, which would lower cost." we want to know what you think the federal role should be in lowering prescription drug prices. the kaiser family foundation also polled to see what most adults would favor the government doing to lower drug prices. i will bring that to you here. the most popular item that

people think the government should do would be allowing the government to negotiate with drug companies to get a lower price that would apply to both medicare and private insurance, 80%. time with that would be making it easy for generic drugs to come to market, which was also approved by 80% by -- by 88% of people asked. another thing americans favor would be placing a limit on out-of-pocket drug costs, allowing americans to import drugs from canada, and allowing medicare to place limits on how much drug companies can increase the price of drugs based on annual inflation rates. americans seem to favor, according to this poll, actions the government could take to make prescription drug prices lower. some of those actions were in

the proposal president biden came out with on thursday and democrats say they plan to put into the three point $5 trillion reconciliation bill that is supposed to follow the infrastructure bill that's been passed by congress. what do you think the federal role should be? let's start with kevin, calling from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't like the way this is framed. i mean, what is the government to do? i mean, it takes the assumption that the federal government has to do something to make drugs more affordable. i want to be clear. this is not a free market of drugs by any means. i mean, the fda decides who can sell to the market. we subsidize most of the cost through medicare and medicaid.

everything is -- the government forces us to have insurance for it. everything the government has done has increased the price of the drugs. i mean, what you have here is you have the federal government limiting the supply of drugs, saying who can buy, who can sell, and then they are subsidizing demand, so you are decreasing supply, raising demand. i mean, that's what's going to happen. i would like for the federal government to have less of a role. you have a whole list of options of what the federal government should do. well, here is an option. the less, ok -- do less, ok? we started these drug laws back in the early 1900s, where a

consumer would know what they were buying, ok? they made it a law where, if you are selling a drug, you have to let the consumer know what is in there, ok? that's great. that's part of a free market, actually, to make sure that people are not lying or defrauding somebody. that was back in the 1900s. ok? today, we have resources unimaginable to decide what drugs to take, what doctor to see. these are decisions we need to make. people who think the federal government should control it, i wish they would keep in mind that what the federal government can do to help people get drugs they can also do to help manufacturers make more money. host: let's go to richard, calling from california. good morning.

caller: yeah. we already have socialists in this country. medicare is socialism, medic aid is socialism. you could go to the fire department and on and on. it is not a totally capitalist society. the thing about medicare is everybody will need medical care. it is not equal across the country in terms of access, especially with these different companies. i work for an hmo. my prescriptions are five dollars each because i have a good plan. if you are out of that loop, you don't know what kind of plan you are going to get, or if you are working for a company that doesn't supply a good plan, you will have varying prices for all kinds of care. that's why the affordable care act was put in. it was trying to level the playing field so everybody could get affordable care, but it got

interrupted by republicans, so this is what is going on with health care. i disagreed -- it is greed in the medical profession, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance, the hmo's, and that's why you cannot have a level playing field in this country, so the federal government has to step in. we pay more for medical insurance and costs in this country than any other country in the world. but we have millions still uninsured and cannot get care. host: mary, calling from richland, washington. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that i think that it is a good thing because, basically, a lot of people don't realize that all of the people that make these

drugs, and not just the ones in china, are on the stock market and they make money. if there is a way of making it, they will. when i was young, i worked for walgreens, and i think it was $1.5 to $2.5 for insulin. i think my granddaughter said her husband was trying to get it down to like $100 for one of those little bottles and it is ridiculous. i remember going to the doctor and he had one receptionist. he paid her. it was $50 to see the doctor and he had one nurse. that was it. but then, you know, the people get in there. people just need to start --

whatever president biden is doing, he is trying to clean up the mess that the last president that wasn't really there had put forth and trying to give us some kind of respect in the world again. host: well, during a hearing last month, the senate investigated the rising cost of prescription drugs and pharmaceutical companies and lawmakers talked about the cost of research and development for drug companies. here is a portion of that hearing. [video clip] >> from per se legal cartel conduct, antitrust enforcers apply -- assessing anti-competitive practices. they ask whether the conduct under scrutiny yields consumer welfare and efficiency that would offset potential anticompetitive effects. of efficiencies might include

practices that reduce manufacturing or distribution costs to the benefit of consumers. they might also involve enhanced product innovation facilitated by patents and other intellectual property. in the pharmaceutical sector, anticompetitive harm and procompetitive efficiencies are often associated with patents. patents may be used to deter entry from competitors. at the same time, they may facilitate enhanced distribution of new technologies. there's a good reason why the u.s. is a leading country in the production of new pharmaceuticals, and that has been our robust patent system. they can be abused but can be important as well. i will argue that congress should likely not legislate in this area except in cases of clear abuse, as in one example.

host: the pharmaceutical industry is arguing that the federal government should stay out of the pricing of prescription drugs. we have a statement from the president and ceo of pharma, the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of america and here is what he says. "we stand ready to work with lawmakers and do our parts so patients can see lower costs at the pharmacy and continued access to the cures and treatments they need. unfortunately, the policies the president outlined today will undermine access to life-saving medicines and fails to address and coinsurance system that shifts the cost -- to address an insurance system that shifts the cost onto patients. medicare is not a piggy bank to be rated to fund -- to be readed to find other programs.

this is a misguided approach. this is a reminder that bipartisan reform is possible and patients to -- patients deserve the same bipartisan leadership." that's a statement from the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of america responding to president biden, who is pushing congress to take action to lower prescription drug costs. we want to know what you think the federal role should be in lowering prescription drug prices. let's talk to john, calling from watsonville, california. john, good morning. caller: yeah. i cannot take any of this seriously. i mean, if they really cared about drug prices, they would form committees, make studies,

and they have never done this. all this is is an afterthought, a sugar sprinkle on a massive power, money and civil liberties grab called -- what do they call it? -- the reconciliation bill. that is all this is, people. don't be a sucker. they don't care. if they actually cared, there would be actual legislation. they are pretending that they care about lowering drug costs. host: let's go to mark, calling from new jersey. mark, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i hope you are doing well. there was -- not your last caller, your previous caller, stole my thunder, but i agree with what biden is trying to do. i just want to present or pose a

question to my republican and libertarian brothers and sisters out there. you know, the founding fathers, who they are so eager to tout as the be-all and end-all, like their old testament pr ophets, never address the concept of corporations and companies, even though things like the dutch east india company already existed, and the fact that this is a threat to ordinary people, that a small group of moneygrubbing people can control so much wealth and power. they never address it. so i want to ask the question, and i know my republican brothers and sisters are out there, and i want them to address it. what guardianship do we the

people have against pharmaceutical corporations, against mortgage companies? what do we have if it is not a strong federal government? because this pretty-sanding talk about liberty -- this pretty-sounding talk about t liberty, it sounds good, but it is leaving us in the lurch. so tell us what we have if not a strong federal government against the power of pharmaceutical companies. host: let's go to clifton, calling from union, mississippi. good morning. caller: yes, sir. i have a medical problem. you have to go -- let me see how to say this -- anyway, you have to pay every three months, and

it is north of $600 under obama. when president trump come in there, for the first time, it went down to $400 and something. the second time, it went down to $289 and stayed $289 through january. it went back up to $400 and something. the last time, it was $500 and something. the next time i get it, it will be more than $700 most likely. i don't know what biden is doing, but he is not lowering the price of drugs. it is probably going to turn out like the border, a calamity, a total mess up. host: let's go to jim, calling from tucker, georgia. good morning. caller: hi, jesse.

good morning. how are you doing, buddy? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: we are expecting way too much out of that two-ring circus in washington, d.c. we have a fantastic medical industry here, the best in the world. we develop drugs nobody else can develop. and if congress starts tinkering with that, then, you know, it is going to, i think, produce some unintended consequences. so, you know, congress should just lay off. the thing is, anything the democrats are going to do, the republicans are just going to say no to. it truly is the party of no, but congress should lay off, not get involved, let these people who

are smart enough to develop these really borderline miraculous drugs, let them do their thing and don't -- don't -- mess it up. host: let's look at the price increases for some popular prescription drugs as brought to us by aarp. a drug used for pain relief has gone up 60%. vicotza has gone up 42%, a pill used to treat diabetes. eliquis has gone up 33%. it treats atrial fibrillation and prevents stroke. symbicor for copd has gone up 46%.

the last drug, 41%. this information comes from the aarp, which also says that in 2020, more than 200 commonly used medications that they track have increased in price by 2.9% while inflation has decreased by less than that -- has increased by less than that, so the cost of prescription drugs has gone up and we want to know what you think the federal role should be in fighting that. let's go to jim in vance berg, kentucky. good morning. caller: for the last, i don't know, 10, 12 years, we have all been talking about lower prescription drugs. we have been talking about better rates on insurance, and this includes george w. bush, barack obama, the president we have now and donald trump.

my premiums or medicine have not gone down one bit, so i think, actually, you are wasting your time talking about this subject, but i enjoy your program and tune in every day. have a good day. host: let's go to diane from st. paul, minnesota. good morning. caller: yes. i tried not to call. i just like to listen, but i would like to say something. for low income people and people who need insulin. amy klobuchar went and made it possible -- because we had people who were dying, who could not get there insulin -- and she made it so that my grandson could get it for $42 for a month, and also inhalers. inhalers are costing me $153 for

three on my plan that i have to have for my asthma, so there are often things that can be done. our legislators, we have to get them involved, because we got amy klobuchar involved to make sure people got there insulin and minnesota -- insulin in minnesota. we can do that. what is happening to our young and old people too working in minimum wage jobs and at small businesses, and when they get a health plan -- because i know working at a small business -- it is not a good plan. when i went to the doctor, i would pay as much as $75 for a dr.'s visit -- and i had a drug that cost $700, where, if i was using this plane instead of the medicare plan, i would be paying

$700 a month just to get the drugs that i got for my arthritis. host: during that same senate hearing that we showed you earlier, republican senator mike lee talked about what he called the danger of government price controls for prescription drugs. here is what senator lee had to say. [video clip] >> we often hear calls for government mandated price controls as a response to the rising cost of prescription drugs. do you think that approach would work? >> i don't think so, senator. as a general matter, history shows price controls create shortages, reduce investment and innovation. the classic example is the federal oil and gas controls in the 1970's. we have major shortages. in the case of pharmaceuticals, that would mean fewer drug improvements and drugs, meaning

patients would be denied the opportunity for cures. the u.s. leads the world in innovation and r&d and would surrender it if it adopted price controls. canada deregulated drug prices -- canada regulates drug prices, which has led to widespread shortages according to a university of british columbia study and they are getting worse. also consider that pharma r&d fell in canada between 2001 and 2017 significantly while u.s. pharma r&d more than doubled to $56 billion during that period, so importing drugs from canada with the aim of reducing prices could also reduce availability and investment. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the federal role in possibly reducing prescription drug prices.

here is one tweet that says "i hate to say it, but the government needs to intervene. the free market system does not work in lowering prices. it is not as if all diabetes patients can organize a boycott on their life-saving medication until prices come down." another tweet that says "the u.s. provides the covid vaccine to anyone for free, yet many citizens die without affordable medical care. saving the people or the economy?" another tweet that says "the federal government knows exactly what to do to lower drug prices. it just cannot bring itself to stop taking bribes from formal lobbyists." another tweet that says "the reason the u.s. leads the world in prescriptions is because taxpayers pay for crazy research and development. we need to get that back."

this says "i pay $300 a month. even so, my meds cost me another $100 a month. i can afford it, but would have others not so fortunate? the government should step in -- the government should step in." the last, "the american drug industry's version of capitalism is to couch americans and put foreigners first." the rand corporation put out a report back in january talking about this. i will bring that report to you. "prescription drug prices in the u.s. are higher than in other nations. prices in the u.s. average 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations according to a new rand corporation report. the gap between prices in the u.s. and other countries is even larger for brand name drugs,

with u.s. prices averaging 3.4 times those in comparison nations. the rand study found that prices for unbranded generic drugs, 84% of the drug sold in the u.s. by volume but only 12% of u.s. spending, are slightly lower in the u.s. than in other nations. brand name drugs are much higher in the u.s. compared to various other nations, but unbranded generic drugs are slightly lower in the u.s. according to a rand corporation report they came out earlier this year. we want to know what you think the role of the federal government should be in lowering prescription drug prices. let's talk to bob, who is calling from florida. bob, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. host: good morning, bob. caller: everybody wants to blame

the pharmacy companies for the price of drugs. the reality of it is is we have quite an expensive process to release these drugs in the u.s. they have to be approved. it is not a cheap process for the drug companies. i take a drug that is cheap, but i call the manufacturer -- that is not cheap, but i call the manufacturer and i get it free. and i'm not on welfare. i do not get medicare. i am not poor, but my income falls below a high amount, and they send it to me free every six months. you know, it is -- we want to charge the drug companies a fortune to prove the medicine works so we can release it in

this country. other countries get the drugs first and cheaper. it is, you know, we are basically the ones -- well, not us, but the government is basically the ones who are proving that, you know, we are going to charge the companies a phenomenal amount and then we expect them to release it at a lower price? you know, it is not a question of them making billions of dollars. it is a question of them covering costs. host: let's go to mark, who is calling from pennsylvania. mark, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead, mark. caller: i want to know how anyone expects congress to be the solver for the problem when they cannot police their ranks and catch their own and do

nothing about it. it was not long ago that joe manchin's daughter was caught up in the epipen scandal and all they did was bring the cost down from $800 to $300 on a product that was $75 before. you have the fox watching the henhouse. that's all i have to say. host: let's go to mike, calling from virginia. mike, good morning. caller: good morning. if we look at england, large span, it is almost the same as ours, infant mortality. the most expensive drug in england is $15,000.

if you are -- this country, it is much richer than england, but the drug companies are greedy. they are making billions of dollars and we cannot do anything about it because the republican party is working for the insurance companies. host: let's go to parisi, calling from arizona. good morning. breezy, are you there? let's go to tim, calling from asheboro, north carolina. tim, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i am a 78-year-old veteran and i am not on v.a. because they say i make too much money. i am currently taking eliquis and paying an outrageous price. every time i see a commercial on tv for it, i

think, i paid for that. i would like to see a law that would limit would form a companies can deduct for r&d, or set it to what they can conduct for r&d to the extent that it exceeds their advertising. thanks. host: the kaiser family foundation has another poll where they asked people about their support for federal government negotiation with drug companies and possible results. i want to bring that poll to you here. when they asked whether people would favor or oppose allowing the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to get a lower price on medications that applies to both medicare and private companies, 88% of the people were in favor of that, but the numbers begin to change when they add a caveats to it. for example, if they ask people

if they would approve those negotiations if people would save money, 90% were in favor of it. if applied to just medicare to save money for paying -- save money by paying less, 81% approved of it, but if they added on that those negotiations could lead to less research and negotiation for new drugs, the approval dropped to 32%. and when they said what if it could limit people's access to newer prescription drugs, it dropped to 31%, so the role of the federal government in negotiations with drug companies can shift if there are negative consequences possibly to those negotiations. we want to know what you think the federal government's role should be in lowering

prescription drug prices. let's talk to daniel, calling from elizabethville, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: the caller from texas, most of the drugs that are on the market are funded by taxpayer money. the messenger rna was developed by the national health service, and of course, university grants and what have you. that lovely woman from i believe it was south carolina suffering from diabetes, insulin was developed by two canadian researchers. they never patented it. and the eliquis thing, on the

insurance, you buy it for $485. i got mine in february. and in january, you have to do another co-pay. if you bought in december, in january, you'd have to pay another 480 five dollars before your insurance kicks in. thanks for taking my call. host: let's talk to earl, who is calling from atlanta, georgia. good morning. caller: hey. how is it going? host: go ahead, earl. caller: i would like to see a graph with all of the congresspeople and their involvement, direct involvement, financial involvement, with drug companies, because we found out recently that there was -- that rand paul had some involvement, so, you know, let's see a good

graph with all the statistics laid out. host: let's go to kelly, calling from bluefield, west virginia. good morning. caller: yeah. for those that have been calling in and it saying that the united states is a free market and that it should stay that way, well, just think about walmart. walmart buys closed from china and sell them at a cheaper price. well, you cannot open up a pharmacy in the united states and by drugs from canada. -- and buy drugs from canada, have them shipped over here and sell them for a cheaper price. try opening a pharmacy and i guarantee the government will step in and say you cannot do that. if there was a free market, people would be able to open up a pharmacy, get the drugs imported from canada or wherever

and sell them at a cheaper price, so for those saying it is a free market, it is not. host: let's go to chris from louisiana. good morning. caller: i am calling because i have been listening to the show myself and all i want to say is it is amazing that we have not made much of any progress when it comes to medication and pricing in our country. it is appalling to know that many of our veterans and our elderly and even every other american citizen are being taken advantage of like this. when i think about it, i think about what is really going on, that people are coming to the table and they are working and negotiating but they are not negotiating on the public's benefit. they are negotiating so that

their pockets get increased with finances. you know, our politicians and congress -- and that is what i call them, politicians -- they are our congressional people, but i think when it comes to these companies, these drug companies, these drug companies are paying them to take care of them and i think that is why we are still in this situation. thank you. host: coming up next, we will turn our attention to the deteriorating security situation in afghanistan. that conversation will be up next. and later, the cuomo era in new york politics is over. or is it? we will ask a reporter with the new republic. stay with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> weekends when you the best in

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