Articles

A third House committee signed off on a bill to direct the government to negotiate the price of some costly medicines, teeing up the measure for a full House vote next week.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved the bill (H.R. 3) Tuesday on a vote of 24-17, with one “present” vote. Democratic leaders have said they plan to hold a vote on the House floor the last week in October on the measure. The measure, backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), would direct the secretary of health and human services to negotiate the prices of the most expensive drugs that have little or no competition, capping them relative to their price in six other countries.

“This is a significant step in the right direction for our nation’s seniors,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the committee, said.

With their full-throated support of price negotiations, Democrats in the House are laying down a marker on how they want to address the issue of rising drug prices. The measure goes further than one proposed in the Senate (S. 2543) by Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). That proposal is largely limited to addressing only what senior citizens in Medicare pay for drugs.

House Democrats remained adamant about their bill’s promises while Republicans called it “dead on arrival” in the Senate. As the markup concluded, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) attempted to bridge the divide between parties in a call for action, saying “we’ve got to get something done.”