Citizens against government waste slams speaker Pelosi’s horrendous drug pricing bill

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#Medicare–Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released the following comments regarding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) partisan drug pricing bill, which would implement the price controls that Democrats have been pushing for years:

H.R. 3, The Lower Drug Costs Now Act, would do the following:

• Give broad power to the Health and Human Services secretary to “negotiate” prices of as many as 250 drugs that lack price competition in Medicare and the private healthcare market.
• Establishes an exorbitant excise tax of up to 95 percent of the gross sales of a drug if the manufacturer does not negotiate or fails to reach an agreement on price.
• Adopts foreign price controls by setting an upper limit for the drug being considered at no more than 120 percent of the average price that six other countries pay for the drug.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Speaker Pelosi’s secret and partisan legislation espouses the socialist view that big government knows better and should control every industry. These radical changes to a popular Medicare Part D program that has cost far less than expected and saved seniors and taxpayers more than anticipated would uproot a successful drug benefit process and extend damaging policies into the private healthcare market. Price controls never work, yet H.R. 3 would establish some of the most onerous government mandates ever imposed on any industry. If the bill becomes law, pharmaceutical investment and innovation will dry up and life-saving drugs will be more difficult to obtain. H.R. 3 is the wrong prescription to lower drug costs and must be rejected.”

CNBC reported that Pelosi and other House leaders discussed the proposal at a press conference in Washington later Thursday.

CNBC noted the House leaders said in the summary that the status quo on prescription drug prices is broken. The House leaders were quoted as saying: “Prescription drug companies are charging Americans prices that are three, four, or even ten times higher than what they charge for the same drugs in other countries.”

CNBC said that Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Merck and Eli Lilly were all up about 1% in midmorning trading Thursday. The SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals index, which tracks drug stocks, was up less than 1%.