US Democrats push for drug price control bid

A group of Democrat members of the US House of Representatives have launched yet another bid to introduce prescription drug price controls, by requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to pay the same rate for the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit for seniors as for average prices on the Medicaid scheme (Marketletters passim).

Previous attempts, of which there have been several since the Democrats took control of both Houses of Congress after the November 2006 elections, have fallen back under sustained pressure from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), several free-market think-tanks and damning reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office concerning the effects of price controls and formulary restrictions, which are already utilized by the Veterans Administration (Marketletters passim).

The repeated attempts by Democrats to reform the Republican-inspired and widely-popular Part D program have previously failed to address the issue that the Medicare scheme has consistently operated at between 30% and 40% below initial projected costs. However, the sponsor of a report making the case for the new proposals, Representative Henry Waxman (Democrat, California), told the Congressional Quarterly's HealthBeat that lower-than expected costs are really down to low Part D enrollment rates.