Senate Republican bill would repeal drug pricing law
Senate Republicans on Friday introduced a bill that would roll back the drug pricing reforms included in the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, including the measures allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and capping annual drug expenses for many seniors.
- Republican Sens. James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) introduced the “Protecting Drug Innovation Act” on Friday, saying they wanted to pull back government authority over the prices of drugs covered by Medicare.
- “Prescription drug prices are too high for many critical drugs, which demonstrates the need for more competition and more options for consumers,” Lankford, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.
Refresher: The bill allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time in the program’s history. It placed a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on annual drug costs for seniors on Medicare, as well as a $35 monthly copay for insulin.
If passed, Lankford’s bill states it would make it so that the drug pricing measures in the Inflation Reduction Act “had never been enacted.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lambasted the bill on Twitter, saying it puts “special interests before working families.”
“Their new bill is a giveaway to Big Pharma at the expense of seniors by ending Medicare’s new ability to negotiate lower drug prices,” Jean-Pierre said. “Their vision for the country is extreme and out of touch with working families across the country.”
