While the high cost of prescription drug prices seems to be a universally agreed-upon trouble spot in the American health system, a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing Thursday showed that Democrats and Republicans are still miles apart on what to do about it.
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Among the topics in play was legislation introduced in February by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), the health subcommittee’s chair, and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). It would allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices by setting a price for the drug based on a number of market-based factors, such as clinical effectiveness and cost.
If a manufacturer of the brand-name drug doesn’t comply, the government may approve a generic manufacturer to compete with it.
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The Doggett-Brown proposal is based on a concept known as compulsory licensing, which would allow the government to use its power to issue patents as a lever if manufacturers are seen as not operating in good faith.
This approach has some precedent in federal policy. During a national anthrax scare in 2001 when doses of Cipro were needed to combat anthrax, the Department of Health and Human Services leveraged the threat of reissuing patents when the drug manufacturer wouldn’t bring down the prices.
