Speaker Pelosi and Trump Administration In Talks About Joint Legislation to Lower Drug Prices
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Trump administration are in early talks about possible bipartisan bills to lower prescription drug costs. The discussions are not public, and the White House official who confirmed them would not say what specific bills they were discussing. Still, this is an encouraging sign. Democrats and Republicans have been unveiling proposals to reduce drug prices, and this is a rare example of a bipartisan issue that both parties agree is a problem. A
U.S. PIRG's New Report Finds That Rising Drug Costs Are Forcing Americans To Spend More For Les
For the well-off the United States has the best health care in the world, with some of the most advanced techniques, medicines, and procedures. But the rising costs of prescription drugs are making this care unaffordable for many Americans, and access is suffering as a result. A recent report from U.S. PIRG finds that increasingly expensive drugs are forcing Americans to spend more on health care and frequently get poor quality care despite all the extra money spent. Drug cos
Senator Braun Introduces Bill to Eliminate Most Rebates in Commercial Insurance Market, Require Savi
The Department of Health and Human Services's (HHS) proposed rule to get rid of most pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) rebates and require the remaining rebates to be passed on to consumers is an excellent proposal to lower drug costs. However, it is incomplete since this rule will only apply to Medicare Part D and Medicaid, and not to the commercial health insurance market. But in the last couple of weeks Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) introduced S. 657, the Drug Price Transparency
Health Subcommittee Considers Seven Bills to Promote Generic Competition
This afternoon, in a somewhat technical but very important hearing, the House Energy and Commerce's Health Subcommittee considered seven bills that would promote generic drug competition, reduce brand drug company manipulations of rules and regulations, and lower prescription drug costs. The Committee's hearing focused on specific bills. The first is the CREATES Act (H.R. 965), which would establish a process by which generic drug manufacturers can get samples from brand comp
Two House Committees Examine Rising Prescription Drug Prices, and What Can Be Done to Lower Them
Yesterday was a banner day for the House of Representatives's drug pricing efforts. Two Committees, the House Ways and Means's Health Subcomittee and the House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on rising drug costs and ways to reduce them. And next week the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold its first hearing on specific bills-a sign that proposals are making their way forward. The Health Subcommittee's focus was on promoting competition t
How Rebate Walls Block Access to Affordable Drugs
Tomorrow the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee is holding a hearing on promoting competition to lower Medicare prescription drug prices. During the hearing, Representatives should ask about a little known practice that encourages health plans to use older, more expensive medicines and that discourages new, more affordable medicines-a practice known as "rebate walls." Here's how it works: drug companies offer billions of dollars every year to health pla
