AARP national volunteer president urges
Congress to act now
by Dena Bunis, AARP, October 17, 2019
En español | Dozens of lawmakers on three
congressional committees heard testimony and debated a House of Representatives
leadership bill that would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for some
expensive medicines and cap out-of-pocket expenses for enrollees.
Under the measure, HR 3, called the Lower Drug
Costs Now Act of 2019, the secretary of health and human services would
negotiate prices for at least 25 of the most expensive brand-name medicines.
The bill would also cap out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare
beneficiaries at $2,000 per year.
Lawmakers on the Education and Labor Committee
voted 27-21 to approve the bill, and the Energy and Commerce Committee voted
30-22 to send the bill to the House floor. The House Ways and Means panel voted 24-17 on
Tuesday to send the measure to the full House. House leaders have said they
plan to bring HR 3 to the floor in the coming weeks.
In addition to the main provisions of the
bill, which AARP supports, the organization's national volunteer president,
Catherine Alicia Georges, urged the Ways and Means members to consider other
improvements to Medicare, such as coverage for dental, vision and hearing care.
Covering such benefits is important in enabling older adults to remain in their
homes as they age, she said.
"The lack of coverage for these important
health benefits leads to worse health outcomes for older Americans and could
actually cause higher Medicare spending,” Georges, who is a nurse, said in her
testimony. “In order to achieve the best possible health outcomes, and the greatest
value, Medicare should cover the entire person – from head to toe."
The Ways and Means hearing largely focused on
how the bill would lower prices for consumers and whether it would inhibit
pharmaceutical companies from developing new prescription drugs.
"Drug companies try to scare patients by
telling us that if we lower drug prices by even a nickel, innovation will come
to a screeching halt,” said Samantha Reid, a woman with Crohn's disease, who
said the main drug she takes to control her illness costs more than $6,000 per
dose. “But that's just not true. The drug industry enjoys some of the highest
profits in the world — roughly two to three times the average of the S&P
500 — and spends most of it on expenses outside of research and development."
In its initial analysis of the legislation
last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that HR
3 would save Medicare $345 billion over a decade, reducing costs for the
prescription drug program by about 25 percent. The partial review also said
that patients would save $158 billion over that period.
At the same time, the CBO report estimates
that eight to 15 fewer drugs would get to market over the next decade. However,
during that same period, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would likely
approve about 300 new drugs.
"Savings from this bill could be devoted
to research and development,” said Mark Miller, an executive vice president of
health care at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy. Miller is a former executive
director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an advisory
group to the program. “There's still a lot of dollars here in the market,”
Miller said, adding that pharmaceutical companies “will have a strong
motivation to continue R & D” and are not going to walk away from this
lucrative market.
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