Warren and Smith Press HHS Secretary Azar on Broken Promises in Trump Drug Pricing Proposal Prior to Appearance Before Congress
Administration Plan Could Increase Costs for Seniors; Provides No New Authority to Negotiate for Lower Prices
Letter
to HHS Secretary Alex Azar (PDF)
Letters
to Drug Company CEOs (PDF)
Washington, DC - United States Senators Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) sent a 12-page letter to Health and Human
Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar with 38 questions seeking new information to
address their concerns about President Trump's inadequate new proposals to
reduce drug prices and his broken campaign promises to "negotiate like
crazy" for lower drug prices. Last month, the senators also sent
letters to the top ten drug company CEOs asking if they had voluntarily
reduced prices as President Trump and Secretary Azar have suggested they would
in response to the Administration's drug pricing blueprint. Not one company had done so - and one of the few companies that gave a clear
answer to the senators' letter indicated that they have "some planned
price increases later this year." Secretary Azar is testifying before
the Senate Help, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on the
Administration's drug proposals tomorrow.
"During the campaign, President Trump made a series of bold promises about
reducing drug prices," wrote the senators. "We are
gravely concerned that the American public has been misled by the President -
that his plan breaks his campaign promises, and would do little to reduce
out-of-pocket drug costs for American families."
The senators asked Secretary Azar about four major concerns with the
Administration's drug proposals:
1) The plan could "significantly increase out-of-pocket costs for some
of the sickest people on Medicare by shifting drug coverage from Medicare Part
B to Medicare Part D."
2) President Trump's promises that voluntary price reductions are a solution to
the drug pricing problem are proven failures.
3) The plan does nothing to reduce runaway drug company profits and drug
company CEO pay.
4) The plan was reportedly developed by former drug industry lobbyists, with
little input from patients and seniors with high drugs costs.
In their letter, the senators raised particular concern about the President's
broken promise to save "$300 billion a year" by negotiating for lower
drug prices. His new plan contains no new negotiating authority for the federal
government, even in cases where the government pays billions of dollars for
prescription drugs. Instead, the plan relies on a weak substitute for
meaningful negotiation by proposing to shift an unspecified set of drugs from
Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D. But experts indicate that this plan could
result in even higher costs and co-pays for millions of seniors. A recent
report by the HHS Office of Inspector General also found that "Part D
unit costs for brand-name drugs rose nearly 6 times faster than inflation from
2011 to 2015."
The senators called on Secretary Azar to be prepared to answer their questions
about the Administration's proposals at his appearance before the Senate HELP
Committee tomorrow.
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