Rachel Cohrs December 09, 2019
Top Republicans on three committees in the U.S.
House of Representatives on Monday pitched a new drug-pricing package as an
alternative to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) government drug price
negotiation plan, which is likely dead on arrival in the Senate.
Though the House Republicans' hodgepodge of
bipartisan drug-pricing provisions almost certainly will not get a floor vote
in the House, Energy & Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden
(R-Ore.) said the leaders are planning to ask the Rules Committee to allow
their bill to get a vote on the House floor as an amendment to Pelosi's bill.
"We think it is a substantive,
full-throated alternative that can pass and become law," Walden said.
The drug-pricing legislation is substantially
similar to a bill Walden put forward at the Energy & Commerce markup on
Pelosi's bill, but Walden said he, Ways & Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady
(R-Texas) and Education & Labor Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) had
held out hope that Democrats would eventually want to pursue bipartisan
legislation on drug pricing. Pelosi's plan has not garnered Republican support.
Walden has claimed that House committee leaders
were close to a bipartisan agreement on a drug-pricing package before Pelosi's
bill was introduced. Leaders of the Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce
committees released a discussion draft of a Medicare Part D redesign that would
have capped out-of-pocket costs for seniors over the summer, but the inquiry
did not lead to bipartisan legislation.
Brady said he hoped Democrats would still come
around after Pelosi's plan fails to gain traction in the Senate.
"They are rushing it to the floor this
week, and it is deader than a doornail. We're hopeful when that's done, we can
join together back on the path of consensus," Brady said.
The legislation incorporated some elements
similar to the Senate Finance Committee's drug-pricing package, but did not
include a controversial provision that would force drugmakers to pay back
Medicare for price hikes above inflation.
"I'm not a fan of incorporating that sort
of arbitrary caps," Walden said.
Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa),
who authored the Finance Committee drug-pricing package with Ranking Democrat
Ron Wyden of Oregon, backed the House Republicans' effort, though he has
refused to strip inflationary rebates from the finance legislation.
House GOP lawmakers, like the Senate Finance
Committee, proposed creating an out-of-pocket cap for patient costs in Medicare
Part D of $3,100. However, the breakdown of costs in the benefit is a bit
different. Drugmakers would pay 10% in the initial phase and catastrophic coverage
phase in the House version, while the Senate's new bill would
have drugmakers pay 7% of costs in the initial phase and 14% in the
catastrophic phase.
The House legislation also includes a provision
that would codify a Trump administration rule to require drugmakers to disclose
list prices in television advertisements. The bill was not included in Senate
packages on lowering healthcare costs, and the rule was blocked by a federal judge.
The House GOP package would create a position
with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative titled the "chief
pharmaceutical negotiator" to represent American drugmakers' interests
abroad. The provision also appeared in legislation introduced by Rep. Mark
Meadows (R-N.C.) in July. Meadows has said he shares President Donald Trump's
concern about foreign freeloading off of the United States' high drug prices,
but he does not like the administration's international reference pricing
demonstration.
Other policies in the bill would cap add-on
payments for some physician-administered drugs, limit patent gaming, increase
transparency throughout the prescription drug supply chain, create a monthly
cap for insulin costs, ensure branded-drug makers do not withhold drug samples
needed for generic development, and change the conditions of first-generic
exclusivity.
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