‘More Regulations’: Division Emerges Among GOP Senators Over Bernie Sanders’ Drug Price Bill

While we can agree that most feel that drug prices are “too damn high’ how we get the government to “fix this” is another matter. Never let a crisis go to waste and the Senate has their eye on the prize. This time around the GOP are divided on a bill that Bernie Sanders has in mind and one can only wonder why. It is Bernie Sanders and we have known for years where he wants healthcare to go.

Back in 2019 I did a post on the intention of Biden’s minions and just for a refresher:

Biden on drug prices: ‘We will set the prices’

August 1, 2019 — bunkerville

“Companies that develop drugs will have to go to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to be told what they’ll be allowed to charge for their products if Joe Biden is elected president,” the former vice president declared Wednesday during the Democrat presidential debate.

“My plan does cover everyone, number one. Number two, the fact is that my plan also calls for controlling drug prices. The biopharma is now where things are going to go. It’s no longer chemicals.

“It’s about all the breakthroughs we have with the whole — excuse me, immune system.

“And, what we have to do now is we have to have a form that sits in the HHS and says: as you develop a drug, you got to come to us and decide what you can sell it for.

“We will set the price. And, secondly, it says that you cannot raise that price beyond the cost of inflation from this point on.”

Keep reading

Then we have Bunk back in 2011:

Drug Shortages in Great Britain – Coming soon with Obamacare?

Patients are being forced to wait for vital drugs – including treatments for cancer – because of desperate shortages of medicines across Britain.

Stocks of 56 drugs, including treatments for cancer, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, depression, kidney disease, high blood pressure, and epilepsy have now run low.

Welcome to the death panels.. I mean drug shortages. This is what happens when you get the Government involved. Trade deals involved?   One can only guess at the amount that the Government was willing to pay for the drugs since there have been major reductions in health benefits in Great Britain.

Here is the latest iteration of the government controlling drugs:

Now the from the Daily Caller:

• Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed legislation that seeks to regulate Policy Benefit Managers (PBMs), and is splitting support among some Senate Republicans. 
• The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), the lobbying arm of a conservative watchdog group, has launched a multimillion dollar campaign against Sanders’ legislation, targeting several Republicans in the upper chamber. 
• “We’re not sure why any Republican would support anything Bernie Sanders touts relating to health care,” CCAGW President Tom Schartz told the Daily Caller News Foundation

Some Senate Republicans are divided over legislation proposed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders regulating the middlemen that negotiate drug prices and health care benefits.

Sanders’ legislation to reform Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), who are responsible for negotiating drug prices and health care benefits for consumers, seeks multiple regulations the middlemen must abide by, like reporting to insurance plan providers about services provided and prescription pricing. Some in the upper chamber’s GOP are supportive of PBM reform to cut prescription drug prices and provide transparency, while others, including a conservative watchdog group, argue it is an example of government interference in the health care system.

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Senators like Paul, Romney and Ted Cruz have expressed concern over regulating PBMs, which Schartz commended them for.

“Different parts of the Republican caucus are all looking at this and saying, having a government make decisions about what should or should not be part of how the Pharmacy Benefit Managers operate, is something that they oppose, and they want to remind their colleagues, their fellow Republicans, that it’s just not a good idea to start regulating how they work,” said Schartz.

Paul wrote an op-ed in late July for Jobe Publishing, Inc. about PBMs and the pending legislation, which was forwarded to the DCNF upon request for comment. (This is an excellent piece by Paul and I encourage everyone to read it.)

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Cruz, ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, also expressed concern over PBM reform in a mid-February hearing. The senator warned about the dangers of granting the FTC regulatory power against PBMs.

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“There is now a serious effort in the Senate in particular to pass legislation that would start restricting how PBMs operate, which would have an impact on the savings of more than $1,000 per year for people that get benefits from PBMs. And it also is, as Sen. Sanders himself said, a step toward government-run health care,” CCAGW President Tom Schartz told the DCNF. “We’re not sure why any Republican would support anything Bernie Sanders touts relating to health care.”

As I said last month:

Reduction in the Cost of Drugs Begins – Welcome to the New Bureaucracy of Winners and Losers

August 30, 2023 — bunkerville 

Of course the argument goes: Every other government in the world negotiates prices. Why  can we not do it?

Of course the cost of drugs is too high. But if anyone thinks that taking this approach will simply be lowering the price alone, I suggest looking at what else is involved with this bill.

The winners have already been picked, and as this clip indicates, it is questionable how “they” arrived at these ten drugs. No one mentions as to “who” actually “they are” that did the choosing. The legal action taken by the drug companies include actions the government is taking beyond just the government’s negotiation of price.

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There are better ways of reducing the cost of drugs that Americans are paying far too much for in comparison to other countries. For a start, why not require companies that no drug can cost more in the U.S. than is charged to other countries?

Dr. Scott Gottlieb on the Medicare drug cost battle as Pres. Biden targets drug prices:

The best of the swamp.