House votes to limit health costs as drugmaker adds price tag to virus

WASHINGTON» House Democrats, moving to sharpen the distinction between themselves and Republicans as the coronavirus pandemic rages, passed legislation on Monday that would ensure that Americans paid no more than 8.5% of their income for health insurance and would allow the government to negotiate prices with drugmakers.

The House passed the bill, voting almost entirely along party lines, just hours after the Trump administration announced it had secured 500,000 treatment courses of a newly approved drug to treat COVID-19, remdesivir, but at a price. The drug’s maker, Gilead Sciences, will charge $2,340 per course, after weeks of donating the drug to hospitals with severely ill patients.

At the White House, President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, defended the arrangement, saying that because remdesivir is an inpatient drug given by infusion, patients are highly unlikely to have to pay for it and “hospitals have to eat the cost of treatment use.”

But the House legislation and the remdesivir announcement once again put a spotlight on the cost of health care as a political and economic issue. While the House bill has no chance of passing the Republican-led Senate, Democrats — who reclaimed the House majority in 2018 on a promise to lower health costs and expand access — intend to use it to reprise that playbook in November.

The bill, unveiled last week, would expand the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, just as the Trump administration and Republican state attorneys general are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 10-year-old law.

“Sadly, as we unveiled our lifesaving legislation last week, President Trump went to court to double down on his lawsuit to tear down the ACA,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor before the vote.

The legislation would enable 4 million people to gain health coverage and make it more affordable for another 14 million, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Republicans argued that the bill would hinder the development of new drugs and therapeutics by depriving drugmakers of the profits they need.