Sen. Bernie Sanders Announces "Prescription Drug Affordability Act of 2015"

Pushes for Lower Drug Prices Through Variety of Measures Including Drug Pricing Transparency; Allowing Part D Negotiations; Imports Of Cheaper Drugs from Canada; Increased Fraud Penalties Taking a break from campaigning for President, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) introduced legislation to address high prescription drug prices called the “Prescription Drug Affordability Act of 2015.” Announcing the Act, Sandars said: “the American people pay, by far, the highest prices for prescription drugs in the entire world” and the “greed of the pharmaceutical industry…has got to stop.” The main provisions of the Act would allow Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices, allow consumers to import cheaper drugs from Canada, ban pay-for-delay schemes, add additional penalties for companies who settle with the government, and require companies to disclose the costs related to particular products and prices they charge in other countries. View Sanders’ Press Release here. Sanders listed a number of grievances he had with the pharmaceutical industry. “It is unacceptable that the top three pharmaceutical companies made a combined $45 billion in profits last year and spent more on sales and marketing than they did on research and development,” he said. He also was critical of the fact that “total spending on medicine in the United States has gone up by more than 90 ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs