Bloomberg Opinion: Pelosi's Aggressive Drug Price Plan Shifts Debate to the Left

By Max Nisen

September 10, 2019

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[I[t appears to be a dramatic shift left for her party, which previously might have been happy just giving Medicare the right to bargain over drug prices. It’s also a sharp contrast with the Senate’s mild bipartisan drug-cost effort, which doesn’t even touch on this point. Negotiation alone would likely have a relatively mild impact, as the government would lack leverage unless it was willing to take the politically dicey step of refusing to cover some drugs.

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Pelosi’s diversion from the Senate proposal makes it less likely that we’ll see major drug pricing legislation passed before 2021. The desire to deny Trump the opportunity to sign a drug-pricing bill might even be another reason the proposal is so aggressive.

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New York Post: Opinion: Democrats’ biggest health care lies

By Betsy McCaughey

September 17, 2019

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a new proposal to bring down prescription drug prices. She’d force drug companies to “negotiate” with Uncle Sam on the price of each medicine.

Truth: Get real, Madame Speaker. No one negotiates with the feds. Uncle Sam will dictate the price. Any drug company that refuses will get socked with a draconian penalty equal to 75% of the previous year’s sales of that medicine. In short, bankruptcy. Good luck getting the meds you need then.

Pelosi’s proposal also would bring medical innovation to a halt. Who will suffer most? Cancer patients. New cancer drugs are available sooner in the United States than in countries with drug price controls, and that has resulted in longer cancer survival rates here, according to Columbia University economist Frank Lichtenberg.

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Washington Examiner: Opinion: Nancy Pelosi unveils 95% tax proposal on prescription medicines

By Ryan Ellis

September 19, 2019

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This “Pelosi Medicine Tax” could apply to the 250 most popular prescription drugs in the country and must apply to at least 25 of them. The tax is not on profits from the sale of the drug, but on the gross receipts from the sale. For example, if a medicine is sold for $100, a tax of $95 is owed, regardless of the cost of selling the drug.

The tax would apply to anyone who needs a prescription drug, and that’s just about everyone — seniors, veterans, women, you name it. The Pelosi Medicine Tax is not limited to just Medicare; it would apply to all sales of an affected drug, everywhere in the healthcare system.

Needless to say, such a tax would cripple access to life-saving prescription medicines and would very quickly mean government rationing and waiting lists. A tax of this size is next of kin to a Venezuelan-style socialist takeover of the bulk of the prescription drug industry. By having to turn all their money over to the government, the pharmaceutical companies would become captive corporations of the government itself — a kind of post office that dispenses pills instead of parcels.

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Forbes: Opinion: Pelosi’s Destructive Drug Ploy

By Grace-Marie Turner

September 20, 2019

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The damage the Pelosi proposal would do to creation of new medicines and even availability in the U.S. of existing medicines would be massive.

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The United States is the world leader in pharmaceutical research, with at least 30 important new drugs released each year. The rest of the world now relies on us for this progress—creating a wealth of high paying jobs in the process.

This is a power and money grab that will do nothing to lower the costs of prescription drugs and will seriously limit access to existing medicines and dry up resources for companies to invest in better treatments and cures for tomorrow.

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