[ad_1]
Democrats scored a key victory over the pharmaceutical industry last year when the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, which gave Medicare the ability to negotiate some drug prices.
Many Democrats are looking to build on that effort and expand the focus to other parts of the drug supply chain, this time through bipartisan reforms.
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is aiming to bring a health package to floor sometime in the next few months, though the timing and the specifics of what it could include is in flux due to the looming debt limit negotiations.
Deep partisan divides may complicate those efforts, but both parties and chambers seem to have common ground with legislation aimed at reforming the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry.
Lawmakers have yet to decide how, and even if, they will address insulin prices in the commercial market.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday will mark up bills on increasing competition for generic drugs, increasing access to medicine for rare diseases, and a bill aimed at PBM business practices.
Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has not said which of the dueling Senate insulin bills he supports, and none were included in the markup.
“The HELP committee is going to be extremely aggressive on doing everything we can to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and we’re going to deal with that in a number of ways. This is a good start,” Sanders told The Hill when asked about the markup.
[ad_2]
Source link
