President Biden’s Build Back Better Act has a provision to cut the high prescription drug prices in his latest discussion on the Senate to act on the House-passed bill.
President Biden’s Build Back Better Act Lowers the Prescription Drug Prices
President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his Build Back Better act in accordance to lower down the costs of the rising drug prices every day for Americans. In the U.S, people are spending much on pharmaceutical drugs per person. As a result, Biden called on the prescription drugs as “outrageously very expensive in America,” adding up to his statements, “It doesn’t need to be this way here in the U.S.”
Furthermore, lessening drug costs is one of the most outstanding parts of Biden’s sweeping climate and social spending bill. the Democrats are eyeing to tout the changes and hammer Republicans for opposing them. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that the public supports allowing the government to lower drug prices are in 83 percent.
Medicare would be able to negotiate in lowering the prices on some drugs for the first time, though that provision was weighed back significantly to win over moderate Democrats including, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Rep. Scott Peters (Calif.), who are worried in distressing the innovation from drug companies.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
On Monday, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of the U.S. strongly disagree with the provisions of the BBB Act. They said Build Back Better fails to address the role of “middlemen” knowing for the pharmacy benefit managers, saying the package should do more to ensure that savings make their way to patients at the pharmacy counter.
Moreover, that negotiation of the provision will now apply only to older drugs that have been on the market for either nine or 13 years, depending on their type. Biden did address the innovation from drug companies, particularly of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccines, but said there is a distinction between that genuine breakthrough and “jacking up prices” on older medications.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is in goal setting to pass the overall package through the Senate by Christmas, but negotiations with centrists, particularly Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), have put that timeline in danger. However, progressives are still pushing them to make the legislation strongly implemented, including by extending the $35 cap on insulin costs to uninsured people.
