WASHINGTON — Leaders of a key Senate committee unveiled a new version of a sweeping, bipartisan drug pricing bill Friday, and they’ve devised a novel plan to get it signed into law.
The bill hasn’t changed much from the version that was narrowly passed out of the Senate Finance Committee in July — though a handful of tweaks offer further benefits to seniors. Since then, however, the bill’s political prospects have grown brighter, particularly after key Trump administration officials endorsed it over a far more progressive proposal from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Lawmakers have also devised a unique ploy to get the legislation, which has been stalled in the Senate, to the president’s desk: Using it to help offset the costs of a slew of health programs, many of which would otherwise close at the end of the year without a funding boost.
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Remove any and all parties milking the drug industry (policitian campaign funds, lobbyists, PBMs, etc), and prices will come down. In other words: there is much more work needed to clear the US health care “system” from all its leeches.
If Medicare is going to negotiate drug prices why do we need PBM’s? Isn’t that what they say that they do?
Seems to me that everyone in Washington forgot about the wolf watching the hen house. Yes, the PBM’s !
Unless the PBM’s are governed, drug prices will never go down ! I guess everyone forgot how many billions
the PBM’s stole from every state in this country. PBM’s have every angle figured out when it comes to stealing from
their own clients , the drug makers and the pharmacies. I think it’s time to open a pizza place !!!