Pharma Mobilizes Army of Lobbyists to Tank Democrats’ Medicare Drug Pricing Plan

The pharmaceutical industry is mobilizing its army of Capitol Hill lobbyists in a last-ditch bid to tank Senate Democrats’ effort to cut prescription drug costs with legislation that would, for the first time, require Medicare to directly negotiate the prices of a small number of medications.

While Democrats’ latest drug pricing plan is highly modest and limited in scope, applying to far fewer medicines than progressives wanted, advocates say it’s an important first step toward curbing the pharmaceutical industry’s unchecked ability to set prices as it pleases, a dynamic that has resulted in exorbitant costs for patients and the federal government.

This year alone, drug companies in the U.S. have hiked prices on their products more than 1,180 times. The federal government is the largest purchaser of prescription drugs in the U.S., and spending by Medicare Part D—the prescription medicine benefit provided through private plans—has surged in recent years.

The pharmaceutical industry has long fervently opposed any attempt to regulate its pricing power, a trend that’s continuing with Senate Democrats’ new proposal, which was principally negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—a necessary swing vote in the upper chamber.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that “when Democrats started drafting the multitrillion-dollar social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act last year, much of corporate America—the oil-and-gas industry, private equity, the farm lobby—fought against policies that would harm their interests.”

“Now that Democrats have decided to try to pass a bill that includes only the two provisions Manchin has agreed to advance—prescription drug pricing and extending Affordable Care Act subsidies—the powerful pharmaceutical industry is fighting a lonely battle to stop it,” the newspaper noted. “The pharmaceutical lobby’s strategy is built on making the case to Senate Democrats that the bill won’t do as much as the leaders claim to reduce prices for consumers, according to three Democratic lobbyists and a person familiar with the effort.”

Letting Medicare negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies—something it is currently barred from doing under federal law—is a hugely popular idea with the public, but past efforts to give the program that authority have been thwarted by the pharma lobby and its allies in Congress.

At present, the pharmaceutical industry boasts more than 1,400 registered lobbyists, far outnumbering members of Congress. According to recent research by the watchdog group Accountable.US, the five biggest drug companies in the U.S. have spent nearly $150 million combined during the pandemic to kill drug pricing reform.

As Bloomberg‘s Robert Langreth wrote earlier this week, “When prescription-drug benefits were added to Medicare under a 2003 law, the pharmaceutical industry successfully lobbied to prohibit the federal government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate drug prices.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.