Legislation that would lower what patients in Medicare pay for drugs advanced out of a key panel on Thursday despite close-call votes on controversial provisions.
The legislation, the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act, advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee by a 19-9 vote, with only Republicans voting against. The bill would cap what people on Medicare pay for drugs at $3,100 a year beginning in 2022 and would cap drug costs by forcing drug companies to give rebates to Medicare if they increase their prices above inflation, among more than two dozen other provisions.
An effort by Republicans to throw out the inflation piece of the bill narrowly fell by a 14-14 vote. Republicans said they opposed the provision out of worries about imposing government price controls that would stymie innovation in the drug market.
No Democrats voted against the bill’s final passage, but several said they wanted the legislation to go even further so that the government would have the power to set drug prices. An amendment to allow such negotiation failed in a 12-16 vote.
The legislation does not have the support of the pharmaceutical industry’s main lobby group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which has spent more than $16.1 million lobbying Congress and the Trump administration during the first half of 2019.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and ranking Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the legislation Tuesday with a pledge from the White House to build support. The Congressional Budget Office, the government’s nonpartisan scorekeeping agency, estimated that the legislation’s provision would save more than $100 billion in a decade.
While several lawmakers praised the bipartisan effort during the markup, others said the committee should slow down to allow lawmakers more time to consider the bill. Grassley, however, said the issue was urgent but agreed to speak with several senators about their concerns after the meeting.
“There’s the ideal to be done but we ought to concentrate on what’s possible to get done and what’s possible to get done now,” he said.
The bill’s passage on Thursday sets it up to be considered by the full Senate in the fall. President Trump has said that addressing drug prices is one of his key priorities, and Reuters reported Wednesday that the White House is considering an executive order that would lower what government programs pay for drugs.
It’s not yet clear whether the House will take the bill up or put its own proposal forward. Wendell Primus, health adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said Monday that House Democrats would be introducing a drug pricing measure in September.
