House Democrats Form Affordable Drug Pricing Task Force

Taking aim at what they call the “skyrocketing costs of pharmaceuticals,” Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform launched the Affordable Drug Pricing Task Force during a press conference last week.

Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) unveiled the initiative, which is the latest in a series of moves by Democrats to protest rising drug prices.

The issue has taken center stage recently after Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the price of its parasitic infection drug Daraprim (pyrimethamine) by 5,000 percent.

Cummings is sponsoring H.R. 3513, the Prescription Drug Affordability Act with presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies to bring down costs for Medicare drug benefits. The bill has been referred to committee for review.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also has joined the chorus of Democratic lawmakers, calling on the FDA last month to take measures that bring lower cost generics to consumers, including expediting pending reviews and encouraging companies to submit applications for generic alternatives.

According to a statement announcing the task force’s formation, the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that 77 percent of Americans identified increasing prescription drug prices as their top health concern.