Big Pharma has unlikely friend in the Senate: Bernie Sanders
After years – perhaps decades – of Democrats treating the pharmaceutical industry as a top foe, the party seems to be warming up to the industry, at least if you carefully read legislative tea leaves from Washington, D.C.
One thing that makes this especially surprising is that the shift is occurring not under the aegis of Sen. Bob Menendez or Rep. Josh Gottheimer, both New Jersey Democrats who represent locales where Big Pharma has a big footprint. It is occurring rather under the watch of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont democratic socialist who is now chairman of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In the area of health care, Sanders has famously championed his Medicare for All proposal, which attracted opposition from PhRMA, the trade association that represents pharmaceutical companies’ interests in Washington. However, PhRMA appears to have been something of a junior partner in that effort, with hospital and health care provider groups and insurers more overtly leading the charge against it in 2019, as the 2020 presidential contest in which Medicare for All proposals were hotly debated kicked off.
But now, Sanders appears to be cooperating with the drug industry on two things it treats as top priorities. The first is pushing an insulin price cap proposal that would impact insurers but not insulin manufacturers themselves (the people who set the actual prices). The second is passing legislation that would target pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs), third-party companies that negotiate lower drug prices for subscribers to health insurance plans but which have attracted criticism for being another layer of corporate bureaucracy that adds to the high cost of health care in America. Probably not coincidentally, concern about PBMs on Capitol Hill has increased at the same time that the pharmaceutical industry launched ad buys hammering PBMs last month (the insurance industry, which takes the PBM side of the fight, has also spent big).
Those of us who work in advocacy and oppose Sanders’ Medicare for All plan have also heard plenty over the years about how, actually, it could be just fine for the pharmaceutical industry. Advocates argued that a stronger government role could even help companies more quickly bring drugs to market.
Meantime, the United Kingdom’s socialized health care system is notoriously stingy with drugs it considers insufficiently proven or of cost benefit. But the U.K. system also offers easier access to prescription drugs and vastly greater availability of over-the-counter medications that would require a doctor’s visit and a prescription in the U.S.
Ultimately, the kinds of policies Sanders wants in health care could be better than you might think for Big Pharma.