PhRMA "Cannot Support House Health Bills"

The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America has announced that it is unable to support the US health care reform legislation proposals reported by the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, because these would impose government price regulation on prescription drugs.

The association says that it has been authorized by its board to support efforts in the House and the Senate on behalf of a "bipartisan, incremental effort to health care reform." Such efforts have not, to date, included any medicare drug benefit provisions. In addition, it says that it has been seeking an industry-wide consensus on the provision through the health care reforms of "a supplemental drug benefit that would provide prescription drug coverage for those low-income elderly and disabled who have no other sources of such coverage."

Meantime, President Clinton told a conference of the National Governors' Association last week that he would not veto any health reform legislation that moved toward universal coverage. "I have no pride of authorship and no pride of details," said the President. "I just want to find a solution that works."