Washington –The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) submitted a letter to Senate Finance Committee Minority Staff responding to the Committee’s Request for Information (RFI) on Commonsense Policy Options to Lower Drug Prices for Patients. The letter lays out targeted reforms ERIC says would lower prescription drug costs for more than 160 million Americans who receive health coverage through their employers.
“Families and employers are being squeezed by a drug pricing system that is stacked against patients and the employers who offer them health benefits,” said James Gelfand, President and CEO of ERIC. “Congress has a real opportunity here, from fixing PBM and wholesaler practices that inflate costs, to closing patent loopholes that keep affordable generics and biosimilars off the market, and ending a crazy system that essentially pays providers commissions based on drugs’ list prices. We look forward to working with the Committee on solutions that actually lower costs for workers and their families.”
The letter urges support for the PBM Fiduciary Accountability, Integrity, and Reform (FAIR) Act (S. 3549), which would hold PBMs to fiduciary standards, and the PBM Kickback Prohibition Act (H.R. 7895), which would bar undisclosed payments to brokers who steer PBM business. It urges Congress to apply similar reforms to other parts of the supply chain – including wholesalers – that were recently applied to PBMs.
ERIC also asks Congress to direct the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to study physician-administered drug costs under commercial plans, pursue site-neutral payment policies, and to end significant perverse incentives currently in place for hospitals.
On the patent system, ERIC’s letter backs a slate of bills to curb patent thickets and end market delay tactics, including the Eliminating Thickets to Increase Competition (ETHIC) Act (S. 2276), the Biosimilar Red Tape Elimination Act (S. 1954), and the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act (S. 2658).
ERIC’s full letter to the Senate Finance Committee is available here.