By: Rachel Roubein; The Washington Post
Sen. Sanders wants to move “very aggressively” on the high cost of prescription drugs
The 81-year-old plans to prove skeptics wrong by sitting down and talking with every lawmaker on his committee about their priorities, and said he’s already begun discussions with Cassidy.
“Look, there are areas where there’s not going to be bipartisan support,” Sanders said. “There will be areas there are, and I will do my best to pursue those areas.”
The Senate health committee has sweeping jurisdiction over the nation’s public health agencies, the Food and Drug Administrationand other aspects of federal health policy. (Medicare-for-all and empowering the federal insurance program to negotiate the price of drugs are both technically under the purview of the Senate Finance Committee, but that doesn’t mean Sanders couldn’t use his high-profile platform to promote both policies.)
Aside from saying a hearing on Medicare-for-all wasn’t at the top of his list right now, Sanders didn’t offer a glimpse of the upcoming hearing schedule, other than to say he planned to “take the show on the road” by holding events outside of Washington, D.C. Nor did he hint at which health executives he planned to haul to Capitol Hill.
It’s a “little bit premature,” Sanders said, though he cited a letter he sent yesterday to Moderna demanding the company refrain from more than quadrupling the price of its coronavirus vaccine as an example of the issues he plans to pursue. Moderna, for its part, said the company is “committed to pricing that reflects the value that covid-19 vaccines bring to patients, health-care systems and society.”
In a warning shot, Sanders noted that the committee has subpoena power. “We will use it judiciously, but we are prepared to use it when necessary,” he said.
Eye on Pharma
The incoming chair didn’t detail specific policies, but he said that drug importation is one of the options. Last year, Sanders attempted to push a sweeping amendment allowing the importation of drugs from other countries through the HELP Committee to no avail, though he would have the power to make it more of a priority as the panel’s chair.
The powerful drug industry lobby pushed back on that idea. In a statement, Brian Newell, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said “the last thing we should do is pursue a risky importation scheme that will jeopardize the health and safety of the American people.”
“If you’re already an industry that’s in [Sanders’s] crosshairs, you need to be worried,” said one Democratic pharmaceutical lobbyist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “He’ll get out and get all his press, and he’ll find a way to actually pass something.”
But one thing Sanders won’t be doing? Paying attention to lobbyists.
“My job is to listen to the needs of the American people, not the industry,” he said. “I’m interested in learning as much as I can, but we’re not going to be sitting down and getting lobbied by powerful corporate interests.”
