In Iowa today, Hillary Clinton detailed her plan to address the rising costs of prescription drugs while encouraging innovation and R&D.
“I want to both protect consumers and promote innovation, while putting an end to profiteering. We can achieve a win-win for families, businesses, and America. There are leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries who share my concerns about high prices. They know we need to make some changes. They just want to make sure it’s done right, and so do I,” said Clinton, who offered three proposals to curb rising drug prices and reshuffle the deck in favor of everyday Americans.
- First, she would demand a stop to excessive profiteering and marketing costs by encouraging innovation and new treatments from drug companies. Her plan will: eliminate corporate write-offs for direct-to-consumer drug company advertising – saving the government billions of dollars over the next decade – and devote these savings to help pay for making permanent and simplifying the R&D tax credit; require drug companies that benefit from taxpayers’ support to invest in research, not marketing or profits; and encourage the extraordinary breakthroughs by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the fight against disease – from rheumatoid arthritis to MS to cancer – while ensuring that Americans can afford them and that their tax dollars support R&D.
- Second, she would lower costs for Americans by limiting out-of-pocket spending, increasing competition, and demanding value for their purchases. Her plan will: require health insurance plans to place a monthly limit of $250 on covered out-of-pocket prescription costs – capping monthly out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs to save patients with chronic or serious health conditions hundreds or thousands of dollars each year; increase competition for prescription drugs to drive down prices and give consumers more choices by clearing out the FDA generic backlog and increasing competition for specialty drugs, including new biologic drugs; prohibit “pay for delay” arrangements that keep generic competition off the market, which could save the government up to $10 billion; allow Americans to import drugs from abroad – with careful protections for safety and quality; and ensure that new drugs coming on the market provide value and high quality to Americans, and justify price increases, rather than simply adding to cost without improving treatments and outcomes.
- Third, she would leverage America’s negotiating power as a backstop. Competition alone isn’t enough to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable and drive prices down, so her plan would: require drug manufacturers to provide higher rebates for prescription drugs in Medicare to contain the cost of drugs for low-income individuals, people with disabilities and seniors – saving more than $100 billion in Medicare costs; and allow Medicare, with its more than 40 million enrollees, to negotiate drug and biologic prices.
For a fact sheet detailing Clinton’s full plan for tackling rising prescription drug costs, click here.
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