The GOP leader of the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady (R-TX), Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Greg Walden (R-OR), Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC), and Judiciary Committee Republican Leader Doug Collins (R-GA) slammed Speaker Pelosi for politicizing the drug pricing debate in Congress and not supporting bipartisan solutions to lower drug costs for Americans without limiting access to cures.
“Americans pay too much for prescription drugs and Congress needs to do something about it. Yet, Speaker Pelosi continues to put politics over progress with a plan that limits access to cures,” said Brady, Walden, Foxx, and Collins. “Our plan to lower out of pocket spending and protect access to new medicines and cures is not controversial. It lowers costs and protects cures with truly bipartisan solutions. The American people need relief and we ought to deliver it by moving forward with legislation that can actually be signed into law.”
BACKGROUND
H.R. 19, the Lower Costs, More Cures Act:
- Encourages innovation of groundbreaking new cures, promotes more low-cost options for patients, and curbs how drug companies can game the system.
- Provides first-ever out-of-pocket cap for seniors in the Medicare Part D program.
- Caps the cost of insulin for seniors in the Medicare Part D program.
- Increases transparency and removes uncertainty at the pharmacy counter.
- Cuts the cost of drug administration, including cancer treatment, for Medicare beneficiaries by as much as half.
- Stops subsidizing other developed countries’ health care through stronger trade agreements.
- Includes policy that has bipartisan, bicameral support and could be signed into law today.
Bipartisan Provisions — by the Numbers — in H.R. 19:
- 36 different provisions from bills passed out of either Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees with unanimous bipartisan support. All but one is sponsored by a Democrat.
- 17 different provisions from bills passed out of the House of Representatives with bipartisan support.
- 28 different provisions from bills passed out of 3 diff. Senate committees with bipartisan support.
- 21 of these provisions come from the Grassley/Wyden drug pricing package, S. 2543, the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act.
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