Pelosi’s drug pricing bill passes House of Representatives
Posted: 13 December 2019 | Victoria Rees (European Pharmaceutical Review) | No comments yet
The House of Representatives has voted to approve Speaker Pelosi’s drug pricing bill in a Democrat-led chamber, say reports.
The US House of Representatives has supported the approval Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s drug pricing bill, according to Reuters, with a Democrat vote of 230 to 192.
However, President Donald Trump is reportedly threatening to veto the bill if it passes to the Senate as it could reduce patient access to life-saving medicines and decrease innovation. The report suggests that the Republican-led Senate will be unlikely to take up the bill, due to its own bipartisan drug-pricing legislation.
The plan would limit the maximum selling price for the country’s drugs using an international index and would stop price-gouging on new medicines for patients on private health insurance, reports the outlet.
It would also decrease the price of medicine for seniors in the US by allowing the Medicare insurance programme to negotiate the price of drugs.
The bill, if successful, would save the government $456 billion over 10 years, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.
