|
 Some lawmakers are trying to revive the Lower Drug Costs Now
Act, a bill that passed the House in December 2019 but failed to gain support
from a single Senate Republican.
With a Democrat in the White House and the Senate divided, activists see an
opportunity to resuscitate the bill, also known as H.R. 3. They have even urged
Congress to pass it using reconciliation, a special legislative process that
wouldn't require bipartisan support.
As a lifelong Democrat, I've spent my career advocating for
workers, and I recognize their need for affordable medications. But trying to
jam this unpopular bill through Congress using reconciliation would be a
colossal mistake.
It's true that H.R. 3 could save the government billions of dollars a year, but
at the cost of how many lives? If the bill passes, Medicare -- our
government-run health insurance program for seniors -- would limit what it pays
for 250 drugs, based on average prices in six other countries. The price caps
and other measures in the bill would save Medicare $456 billion in the next
decade, a report from the Congressional Budget Office found.
Those price caps would reduce drug maker revenues by around $1.5 trillion over
10 years, according to healthcare consultant Avalere.
That $1.5 trillion would go to support jobs. The industry employs or indirectly
supports 4.7 million people in the United States. The 811,000 workers it
directly employs make $127,000 a year, on average, and cumulatively pay $23
billion in taxes.
By slashing drug-maker income, the bill would also limit companies'
re-investment into new discoveries – like our breakthrough Covid-19 vaccines.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if the bill became law, it would
prevent 38 new drugs from coming to market over the next two decades.
Everyone wants lower drug costs, but there are ways to achieve them that don't
kill jobs or prevent new medical discoveries.
[
to
top of second column] |
A nurse draws a COVID-19 vaccine at the Oregon State Fair and
Exposition Center in Salem on January 7, 2021. The site's clinic can
administer 250 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines per hour.
Tim Gruver/The Center Square
Congressional Democrats could target "pharmacy
benefit managers" or PBMs, powerful middlemen in the drug supply
chain.
PBMs decide which drugs you do or do not have
access to. And to get new drugs on the formulary or list of drugs
insurers cover, they extract a very huge price from the companies
and the patients.
In 2019, drug companies gave PBMs $175 billion in rebates under this
system. The PBMs take a share as profit and pass the rest on to
insurers.
Patients rarely, if ever, see any savings from these discounts. If
Congress required PBMs and insurers to pass even part of the rebates
on to patients, consumers could save tens of billions of dollars
over the next nine years, according to the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services.
Opponents of H.R. 3 convinced Senate Republicans of the bill's
drawbacks nearly two years ago. As they argued then, its impact on
medical innovation and the economy would outweigh any benefits.
I'm disappointed that my party would revive this misguided piece of
legislation, and even more so that they might do so through
reconciliation, a process that would leave no room for debate. The
party of the working people should do better.
Ron Klink is a former Democratic congressman from
Pennsylvania and a senior policy adviser at Nelson Mullins Riley &
Scarborough LLP. This piece originally ran in the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review.
Click here to respond to the editor about this article |
