House Passes Legislation to Allow Government to “Negotiate” Medicare Drug Prices
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007" on Friday, Jan. 12, legislation (H.R. 4) that would strike the "non-interference" clause from the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) and require the government to negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers. The bill passed by a vote of 255-170 with the California delegation voting 36-17 in favor. CHI submitted a letter in opposition to the bill to members of the delegation, outlining the potentially adverse consequences the measure has for biomedical innovation, patient access, and consumer choice. The debate now moves to the Senate where last week Senators Snowe (R-ME) and Wyden (D-OR) introduced similar legislation. This legislation differs slightly from the House version because it focuses on single-source drugs and medicines based on a substantial amount of federal research funding as criteria for negotiations. This issue was the subject of a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee last Thursday titled “Prescription Drug Pricing and Negotiation: An Overview and Economic Perspectives for the Prescription Drug Benefit.”
House Passes Stem Cell Legislation; Senate Holds Hearing
The "Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007," legislation (H.R. 3) that would reform current federal human embryonic stem cell policy by permitting new research, subject to strict ethical guidelines and appropriate oversight, was passed by the House on Thursday, Jan. 11. The bill passed by a vote of 253-174 with the California delegation voting 42-9 in favor. CHI submitted a letter to the delegation supporting the measure, highlighting the need for an overarching federal policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the Senate, the issue was the topic of a joint hearing by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies on Friday, Jan. 19. The hearing, "Can Congress Help Fulfill the Promise of Stem Cell Research?" was a pre-cursor to a floor debate likely to take place following the Presidents’ Day recess.
CHI Launches Podcast to Explore Implications of Cost-effectiveness Approaches to Medical Technology
CHI is proud to announce the launch of a new five-part bi-weekly podcast series, Cost Over Care: The Dangers of Bureaucratic Medicine. In the series, leading health policy experts will explore how applying cost-effectiveness analysis to health care coverage decisions can limit patients’ access to innovative therapies. In the premiere episode, launched on Wednesday, Jan. 10, at the 25th Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, David Gollaher, CHI president and CEO, explores true “evidence-based medicine” and discusses the misinterpretations of the term and how it is sometimes misused to advance cost-based health policies. In the second episode, to be released on Wednesday, Jan. 24, Dr. Kwabena Adubofour, the medical director of the East Main Clinic and Stockton Diabetes Intervention Center, addresses how cost-based healthcare policies could increase healthcare disparities among minority communities. Subsequent episodes will follow every other Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. PST and can be accessed for convenient listening on the CHI website, iTunes and other podcast directories.