Press Release

AAF’s Christopher Holt Testifies on Speaker Pelosi’s Prescription Drug Plan

In testimony before the House Education & Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions this afternoon, AAF’s Director of Health Care Policy Christopher Holt is discussing the potential challenges created by Speaker Pelosi’s proposal (H.R. 3) for lowering drug prices. Unless it is willing to curtail access to drugs, the federal government fundamentally lacks leverage in a true negotiation, he notes — and as a result, the negotiation that the Speaker has proposed is instead effectively government price controls.

His central points:

  • Government negotiation of drug prices, as outlined in H.R. 3, amounts to federal price setting and would be a notable deviation from how the federal government has traditionally engaged with markets and private companies;
  • Proposals to tie drug prices in the United States to those of other countries that set prices through fiat is in effect importing those countries’ price-setting decisions; and
  • In the face of rising demand, the only way to reduce prices without harming innovation or access to treatments is to increase supply and heighten competition.

Read the Testimony.

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