David Snow, CEO of the pharmaceutical company Medco Health Solutions, appeared Tuesday before a House Judiciary Subcommittee for a little-noticed hearing on the proposed merger between his company and Express Scripts, another large pharmaceutical. As the hearing progressed, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., asked Snow how Obamacare “has complicated or made more convenient your life?”
Snow’s answer — that Obamacare makes it “very difficult to manage my company” — reveals why Congress should never “pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it,” as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said about Obamacare.
Snow did allow that he is “a big believer that the things we’re trying to do as part of health care reform are important.” Later in the hearing, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, tried to draw Snow into making the argument that greater Medicare involvement in drug price negotiations would drive drug prices down. Snow allowed that “technically, yes,” Medicare could negotiate a lower price because “scale does drive better price.” But then he explained how the government has increased drug prices in the past:
You can watch videos of Snow’s remarks below.
Here is his exchange with Conyers:
Here is Snow’s exchange with Nadler:
