Democrats avoided infighting during a hearing on prescription drug prices Wednesday, a positive sign for the passage of a bill recently introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The hearing, held by the Energy and Commerce Committee’s health panel, was intended to look at several different proposals that would let the government become more involved in setting drug prices, but the Pelosi bill is the one House leaders intend to bring to the floor by the end of October.
The legislation, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, would let the Department of Health and Human Services negotiate the prices of 25 to 250 drugs deemed to lack competition and would extend to drugs covered by the government or by private health insurance. It would impose fines on pharmaceutical companies when they don’t come to the table to bargain.
Progressives have said the bill doesn’t go far enough in cracking down on the pharmaceutical industry, but members did not put their divisions on display during the hearing. Instead, Republicans expressed anger over the swift pace at which Democrats were moving on the legislation and said they were left out of writing the legislation.
“It does seem to be a partisan exercise,” said Michael Burgess of Texas, the top Republican on the panel.
“This is partisan politics at its worst,” said Greg Walden of Oregon, the top Republican on the full Energy and Commerce Committee, who pointed out that members had already been working on bipartisan legislation to lower drug prices by increasing competition and allowing for more cheaper generics to hit the market.
Republicans are opposed to the Pelosi bill — or to any measure to let the government set drug prices — because they said it would get in the way of developing future cures. Other countries that set prices turn away drug companies and medicines take longer to reach their residents, Republicans said.
Members of the subcommittee heard testimony from Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Benedic Ippolito, research fellow in economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and Robert Fowler, a professor emeritus at Baldwin Wallace University who testified about a costly drug he takes to treat cancer.
Anna Eshoo of California, who heads the subcommittee, noted that when President Trump was running for the Oval Office, he said he supported the idea of letting drug companies negotiate. The Pelosi bill also contains a provision that lets the government determine prices based on what other countries pay, which is something Trump has spoken out on before and that his administration has proposed for drugs given to Medicare patients at the doctor’s office.
“I see where the different fissures are, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stretch ourselves to see if we can’t come together because we all care about it,” she said at the conclusion of the hearing, which lasted 4.5 hours. The bill, she told Walden, would get a markup in the subcommittee.
Trump said on Twitter last week that he liked another bipartisan bill that passed in the Senate Finance Committee, which would cap out-of-pocket costs for drugs for seniors and penalize companies that raise prices above inflation, but also said the Pelosi legislation was “great to see.”
