Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) said there is “no question” that drug pricing will be an element of the Senate’s final budget resolution bill, and he again touted the idea of the government negotiating prices.
“When you have 50 million citizens-plus on Medicare, the program ought to negotiate a good deal. Who in the world doesn't negotiate?” Wyden told reporters Wednesday (July 14).
When asked whether drug pricing can be used as a pay-for like Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has suggested, Wyden said it’s his job to look at all the pay-fors in the budget resolution, but noted that he is for Medicare benefits expansion. Expanding Medicare to include dental, hearing and vision is expected to come with a price tag of over $299 billion.
A senior Senate Democratic aide said senators were told during their lunch on Wednesday that the pay-fors would include both drug-pricing measures and a repeal of the Trump-era Part D rebate rule.
While Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) didn’t mention drug pricing when he announced the budget deal Tuesday night (July 13), he said the deal would be offset by tax measures and other pay-fors that Wyden’s committee would compile. Sanders suggested at the time that drug-pricing measures would be included.
Wyden has been negotiating with lawmakers for weeks on a new drug-pricing bill that falls somewhere between House Democrats’ sweeping government price negotiation bill, H.R. 3, and the bipartisan bill he crafted with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) last Congress that would slap inflationary rebates on drug makers but not give the government power to negotiate prices. Wyden is said to be looking at a version of drug price negotiation that doesn’t rely on foreign prices as the gauge and that ratchets back the number of drugs for which prices would be negotiated.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has continued to tout H.R. 3, including as recently as last week when the House oversight committee released a staff report blasting the drug industry for its financial practices. Yet she has not drawn a sharp line when it comes to including H.R. 3, which some moderate Democrats have signaled they now oppose, in a reconciliation package.
Pelosi sent out a letter Wednesday telling her caucus that top House priorities like enhancements to Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, fixing the Medicaid gap and addressing the care economy will be included in the Senate’s budget resolution, but she made no reference to drug pricing. -- Maya Goldstein (mgoldstein@iwpnews.com), Donna Haseley (dhaseley@iwpnews.com)
