Bills aimed at reducing the cost of some prescription drugs passed in the Michigan Senate Thursday. The legislation would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board that would have the power to set price limits on certain medications.
State Senator Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) said that power to cap prices is necessary to keep drugmakers from overcharging Michigan residents.
“These companies are exploiting our seniors, those with chronic illnesses and so many others by charging outrageous prices for life saving medications simply because there's no system in place to hold them accountable,” Camilleri said during a press conference.
Not everyone is on board for the price limits, however. Only one Republican crossed party lines to support the three-bill package Thursday.
Other Republicans spoke out against them, claiming they would jeopardize free-market innovation within the pharmaceutical industry.
“This is a bad idea. It's anti-competitive, it's anti-free market. And what ends up happening is when you take away basic free market principles, it ends up hurting society as a whole,” Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) said in a floor speech.
Democrats rejected that argument, however. Sen. Veronica Klinefelt (D-Eastpointe), another package co-sponsor, argued the pharmaceutical industry already isn’t a free market.
“In a free-market society where there's supply and demand, the consumer isn't a held captive as they are with prescription drugs. They don't have a choice to walk away,” Klinefelt said Thursday.
Under the bills, the governor would appoint five people with experience in healthcare but no stake in the pharmaceutical industry to serve on the affordability board.
A 21-member council chosen by a mix of the governor and legislative leadership to represent drugmakers, the public, and various other stakeholders would advise the affordability board.
The package would give the board, with the help of the council, a year and a half to pick which medications to focus on based on a variety of factors. Those include the cost of a 30-day supply or how expensive a generic drug is compared to the name brand.
PhRMA — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a lobbying organization for the pharmaceutical industry — argued that setup wouldn’t work. Stami Turk is director of public affairs for PhRMA.
“Prescription Drug Affordability Boards are a disaster for patients,” Turk said. “These bills put the government between patients and their doctors. They give unelected bureaucrats a veto pen over the medicine or the treatments doctors prescribe and patients need. Worse yet, they force taxpayers to foot the bill.”
The Democrat-led state Senate passed similar bills last legislative term. Despite having more than a year to take them up for a vote, the package never got anywhere in what was then a Democrat-led House of Representatives.
At Thursday’s press conference, Democrats said they “had no explanation” for why it never came up for a vote then and directed focus toward getting the bills through what’s now a Republican-led House this term.
In addition to the Senate voting on the policies Thursday, House Democrats introduced similar bills in their own chamber to try to move the issue forward.
“We should take the politics out of it. We should get it done because it's long overdue and I think that's the end of the story. So, it is on our constituents in the press to start asking these questions and to really put the pressure on legislators to do the right thing,” Rep. Jason Morgan said during Thursday’s press conference.
