Previously, I highlighted New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez’s seemingly strong opposition to his party’s bill to grant Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices. Menendez said:
“My goal, which I have not seen in any proposal so far, is to ensure that the consumer at the counter gets relief and not just simply the government,” Menendez told NJ Advance Media.
“Otherwise, we will have done all of this, we will have taken billions from an industry that’s important to the nation, as we just saw with COVID, that’s important to New Jersey, but we still won’t have dealt with the cost of prescription drugs over the counter.”
Apparently, Menendez’s strong statements against Medicare drug price controls, masquerading as “negotiation,” were hollow. In N.J.’s Menendez backs deal to lower drug prices after opposing earlier proposals, Jonathan D. Salant reports:
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who had opposed House legislation designed to lower the prices of prescription drugs, endorsed a compromise proposal on Tuesday that would allow Medicare to negotiate on some drugs and cap seniors’ out of pocket expenses.
Menendez said he had insisted that any drug pricing legislation would make sure “New Jerseyans and Americans all across the country finally see a meaningful reduction in the rising cost of drug prescriptions while protecting innovation on life-saving treatments.”
Medicare’s negotiating authority would be limited, under this “compromise.”
Under the provision, Medicare will be able negotiate prices for up to 10 high-cost prescription drugs in 2023, with the new lower prices available beginning in 2025. The number of drugs subject to negotiation eventually will increase to 20.
But the door to price controls is cracked open. Does anyone really believe it won’t be swung wide open, eventually? The pharmaceutical Industry’s trade association explained the practical problem:
The drug industry’s trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the new proposal had all the problems of the old one.
“Under the guise of ‘negotiation,’ it gives the government the power to dictate how much a medicine is worth and leaves many patients facing a future with less access to medicines and fewer new treatments,” said Stephen J. Ubl, president and chief executive.
It’s also deceptive for labeling it “negotiation” and immoral for denying drug companies any real choice in pricing the medicines they create. Hopefully, other Democrats—it’ll only take one in the Senate—will see the danger and block the bill.
Related Reading:
NJ Senator Menendez Applies the Brakes to the Dem’s Push for Drug Price Controls
The Star-Ledger’s Medicare/Prescription Drug Misinformation Campaign
Pharma Can’t ‘Bargain’ With a Medicare Monopsony
Huber on the Personalized Medicine Revolution—and the Government Roadblocks
How the FDA Violates Rights and Hinders Health—Stella Daily Zawistowski
1 comment:
Maybe Senator Mansion, I mean, Manchin, will block this bill. I thought it was a bill to give Medicare authority to negotiate what price IT pays, not everybody else. In that way, Medicare would be negotiating for itself, not dictating for all. But, even if that was true, Medicare would be a big enough market force (thanks to its mere existence as a big entity under the unjust Medicare law) to overwhelm all the smaller entities influence on prices.
Post a Comment