Everyone seems to want lower drug prices. 5 reasons why that hasn’t happened
WASHINGTON — Of all his campaign promises, President Trump’s vow to bring down drug prices was perhaps the most popular.
An assortment of interest groups spoke out loudly and passionately on the need for action, from hospitals to doctors to insurers to generic drug makers to patients themselves.
And in many ways, they seem to have the clout, and resources, to counter drug makers’ slick ad campaigns and lobbying firepower. Last year, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the American Hospital Association together spent more than $45 million lobbying Congress, almost twice what the drug makers’ group, PhRMA, spent in the same time period.
Instead, congressional efforts to lower drug prices are at a total standstill. In interviews with STAT, lobbyists, lawmakers, and congressional staffers, Republicans and Democrats alike, said the most powerful health industry players conspicuously disagree about exactly how to move forward. Every group pushes its own priorities and strategies — a cacophony that makes it unlikely that crushing drug prices will change any time soon.
“They all say, ‘Yes, we should [lower drug prices], and someone else is responsible for it,'” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, told STAT. “Everybody needs to
