Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders plans to introduce a wide-ranging policy prescription to bring down increasing drug prices, including allowing drugs to be imported from Canada.
The Vermont senator said Tuesday he would introduce a bill that proposes a series of reforms for combating high drug prices, which jumped 12 percent last year from the year before. The healthcare industry has had to deal with high drug prices from new specialty drugs to treat life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis C, but Sanders’ bill also addresses high prices for generic drugs.
The bill would allow the federal government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices for drugs covered under Medicare, a common request from experts seeking to lower drug prices.
“We should use our buying power to get better deals for the American people. Other countries do it. Why don’t we?” the senator said in a press release.
But a 2007 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that any benefit would be negligible. That is because pharmacy benefit managers, which oversee drug plans for insurers, already negotiate for lower prices.
Sanders’ bill would go further. It would enable patients, pharmacists and wholesalers to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
Maine passed a state law to do this, but a judge struck down the law earlier this year. The reason was the federal government has authority over importation, according to a February report in the Wall Street Journal.
Sanders also wants drug companies to disclose the research and development costs incurred while making a drug. The drug industry cites high research and development costs and time, estimated in some studies to be in the billions, as a reason for high drug prices.
However, advocates have been skeptical. Several states are pursing measures to require drug companies to be more transparent about development costs.
The bill also would require generic drug makers to pay rebates to Medicare and pay additional rebates to Medicaid if the drug goes past a certain price. The provision mirrors a similar bill filed earlier this year by Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
The two lawmakers have been investigating high prices for more than a year.
Sanders’ progressive message appears to have struck a chord with Democratic voters as he is narrowing the gap with frontrunner Hillary Clinton. A Des Moines Register poll released this past weekend found Clinton ahead in Iowa by only seven points.
It was the first time Clinton dropped below 50 percent support in four polls conducted by the Register and Bloomberg, the newspaper said.
