InsideHealthPolicy.com's Daily Briefing - Powered by Dow Jones With former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) out of the way, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said it’s possible to pass the bipartisan drug pricing bill he helped negotiate in 2019, and he asked HHS Secretary-nominee Xavier Becerra whether the Biden administration would support that bill, but the California attorney general didn’t answer.
In 2019, the Senate Finance Committee passed drug pricing legislation that then-Finance Chair Grassley negotiated with current-Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR). At the markup, Wyden said Democrats would link a floor vote on the bill to a vote on letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, but McConnell didn’t let the drug pricing bill come up for a floor vote, much to Grassley’s chagrin. Grassley got nine Republicans to cosponsor the bill last summer, but that wasn’t enough for a filibuster-proof majority, even if all Democrats voted for the measure. Since then, a tenth Republican, Sen. Dan Sullinvan (R-AK), cosponsored the bill, and Democrats won back the Senate, if just barely.
Grassley said the Senate Finance-passed bill “will be a lot easier to get up under a Schumer majority leader position than it was under McConnell."
“Or do you think they want the alternative of trying to get something a lot stronger from the Democrat point of view?” Grassley asked Becerra.
Becerra said that’s a matter for Congress to figure out.
Wyden started the hearing by listing drug pricing policy first when emphasizing his committee's focus on righting inequality in health care. Becerra received drug pricing questions from Finance that were similar to those from the health committee Tuesday. The California attorney general was asked about march-in rights, insulin prices, the 340B hospital drug discount program, and drug shortages that lead to price spikes.
Print Page
Email to a Friend