 Gingrich has also called for transparency in the prices of medical devices, noting it is one of the few aspects or U.S. health care where consumers and federal health officials are "barred from comparing the quality, medical outcomes or price".Gingrich supported the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, creating the Medicare Part D federal prescription drugs benefit program.While he has received some criticism from conservatives over the cost of the plan, Gingrich has reiterated his support in years since, saying that it represented necessary modernization of the system, as Medicare was created in the 1960s, before pharmaceutical drugs were in widespread use.