House progressives have several changes they want to make to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's drug-pricing legislation, according to STAT.
Below are six of the changes proposed by the progressive lawmakers:
- Increasing the number of drugs eligible for Medicare price negotiation.
- Immediately capping the price of drugs when they launch.
- Offering the Medicare-negotiated price of sole-source drugs to patients without insurance.
- Increasing the number of peer countries in the international price index from six to 36.
- Increasing the types of drugs eligible for negotiation.
- Expanding a provision that would require drugmakers to pay back the government the value of drug price hikes dating back to 2016. The expansion would force drugmakers to pay reimbursements to commercial insurers as well.
The changes are backed by outside advocacy groups including Families USA and Public Citizen.
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the proposed bill Oct. 16.
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