A sweeping draft legislative package from the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Health Committee seeks to lower health care costs by addressing surprise medical bills and adding transparency to drug prices, among other provisions.
The bipartisan draft from committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the panel’s top Democrat, comes as the pair have been working to find areas of agreement where both parties can take action on health care.
“The steps we are taking on important issues like surprise medical billing, drug prices, maternal mortality, and vaccine hesitancy show we can make progress when both sides are at the table ready to put patients and families first,” Murray said in a statement.
via The Hill.
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Donald Trump’s promise of sweeping health-care reform has not come to pass. While the president campaigned heavily on assurances to ‘repeal and replace Obamacare’ on 'day one’ with an unspecified plan for every American to have affordable health care, his claims have now been diluted to a focus on 'drug prices.’
via Has Trump Actually Done Anything About Drug Prices?
Related Reading:
Putting Drug Prices in TV Ads Won’t Solve the Problem.
The Trump administration counters with the sketchy argument that the disclosures on television will compel patients to sit down and talk to their doctors about cheaper alternatives, supposedly putting pressure on Big Pharma to reduce prices. But talking to one’s doctor is not going to do the trick. Nor is switching to cheaper drugs always advisable for patients with chronic or serious diseases.
The new Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee squashed Democratic hopes Wednesday of passing a proposal to allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies to lower prescription drug prices.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters he would pursue legislation to lower drug prices, but will not pursue the Democratic proposal on negotiations.
“I don’t want to mess with the government negotiating prices with the private sector,” he said.
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
Congress Moves to Tackle Prescription Drug Prices.
Rising drug prices continue to pummel the pocketbooks of seniors living on fixed incomes. Too many older Americans are still having to choose between groceries and medicine – or cutting pills in half.
Skyrocketing drug prices are having an impact on seniors’ pocket books and on the Medicare program’s finances.
Related Reading:
- High RX drug prices certainly not news to seniors.
- While Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli’s decision to raise the cost of a drug 5,000%
certainly got a lot of attention earlier this year, the fact that the
high cost of prescription drugs in America continues to soar beyond the
reach of many isn’t news to anyone who’s made a trip to the pharmacy
lately. In fact, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found a large majority of the public (72%) view the cost of prescription drugs as unreasonable.