Candidates battling over costs of prescription drugs
The cost of prescription drugs has taken center stage in congressional races all over Texas.
In campaigns from Austin to San Antonio to Houston, candidates are insisting they’re committed to reining in the price of prescription drugs — while claiming their opponents can’t be trusted on the issue.
Polls explain why drug costs are getting so much attention. Almost 80 percent of Americans believe drug costs are too high, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy. The poll found that voters blame both parties for not working hard enough on the issue.
“It actually matters to people quite a bit,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston.
In a TV ad, Crenshaw looks into the camera and vows to hold big pharmaceutical companies accountable, decrease costs and ensure greater transparency about drug pricing.
The ad hit the airwaves just as his Democratic opponent, Sima Ladjevardian, launched her own ad declaring that Crenshaw had broken his promise by voting against legislation to cut drug prices — a charge Crenshaw has called “nonsense.”
Similarly, in San Antonio’s 23rd Congressional District, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones launched an ad declaring that she wants to cut the cost of prescription drugs — and accusing her opponent, Republican Tony Gonzales, of wanting to do away with the Affordable Care Act, including a provision that cut drug costs for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit.
Gonzales has opposed the Affordable Care Act, but he says he’s for greater transparency in drug pricing and wants to bring generic drugs to market faster, which would save patients money.
The debate and the Democratic
attacks revolve around two bills in Congress.
Competing reforms
Last December, Democrats rolled out House Resolution 3, a multipronged bill aimed at lowering drug costs. Republicans countered with House Resolution 19, a more narrow plan for drug price cuts.
The Democrat-backed legislation calls for capping out-of-pocket drug prices at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs for all Americans on up to 250 medicines. It includes a provision to make manufacturers hold price increases on drugs to the rate of inflation.
HR 19 countered with a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare recipients at $3,100 a year. But instead of capping future price increases, it would require more public explanation of increases greater than 10 percent a year.
The bill also seeks to make it quicker for generic versions of medicines to reach the market.
Crenshaw said the big problem with HR 3 — which he voted against — was that those government-mandated price controls would hurt innovation and, ultimately, fewer medications would get to market.
“Anytime you put price controls on something, you get less of it,” Crenshaw said.
Crenshaw pointed to a report by the independent Congressional Budget Office that said there would be potentially 30 fewer medications over 10 years on the market if private companies were subjected to price controls on the medicines they are developing.
Gonzales’ campaign has made a similar point, warning that the Democratic proposal hurts research and development.
“Democrats want to put price controls on prescription drugs, which will kill new R&D,” Gonzales campaign spokesman Matt Mackowiak said.
But Democrats say what Republicans are offering wouldn’t offer consumers as much protection. Ladjevardian said that while the Democratic bill is not perfect, Crenshaw is leaning on a hollow, ineffective GOP alternative.
“Dan went to Washington as an independent voice and came back as Big Pharma’s puppet,” Ladjevardian said of the drug manufacturers trade association in Washington known as PhRMA.
Spending big in 2020
Which party controls the House and Senate in January will determine which proposal ultimately makes it through Congress.
If Democrats hold the majority in the House and pick up the seats needed to flip the Senate, they’d likely have the votes to push through a version of HR 3 — a prospect that has pharmaceutical companies spending big on elections all over the nation.
The bill is ardently opposed by the pharmaceutical industry. PhRMA has called HR 3 “radical.” PhRMA President and CEO Stephen J. Ubl has warned it would “fundamentally restructure how patients access medicines by giving the federal government unprecedented, sweeping authority to set medicine prices in public and private markets.”
But he’s also not a fan of the Republican plan, which he said “fails to ensure that rebate reforms would lower costs for patients at the pharmacy counter.”
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the pharmaceutical industry had already spent $26 million on congressional campaign donations through the first six months of the year trying to influence outcomes.
But although polls show voters want Congress to tackle prescription drugs, how to do that is not clear.
The Kaiser Family Foundation polling showed that 85 percent of respondents want to give the government power to negotiate lower prices for Medicare recipients and those on private insurance — a key part of the Democrats’ plan.
But 88 percent supported efforts to bring generics to market faster. And 88 percent agreed that the list prices for pharmaceuticals should be disclosed in drug company ads, a transparency measure that Republicans have championed.