TAPP Denounces Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Proposal to Allow Medicare to Negotiate Prescription Drug Costs

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is proposing a dangerous plan to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare. The plan represents an agreement among all Democrats, including President Joe Biden and the usually more astute U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. This is the initial step to introducing a new reconciliation bill to the floor for possible action. This must be stopped now, before it can cause serious harm to Americans.

The proposal offers a false promise to American patients. “Negotiation” is just another form of price controls, a practice that is proven to be harmful to patients, doctors, and innovators across the world—a practice that Democrats long tried to force upon the American healthcare system.

Schumer’s proposal would harm Americans in need of medical care, as access to both doctors and medicines would be curtailed. Pharmaceutical companies devote billions of dollars each year to developing new, lifesaving cures. The proposed price controls would deprive them of the money needed to fund their research and development efforts. Thus, price controls would seriously hinder innovation and discovery of new medicine, putting Americans at risk now and long into the future. Indeed, it is impossible to know just how many Americans would die as a result of curtailed innovation.

Moreover, price controls would hinder American innovators’ ability to compete on an international scale. America’s technology and innovation edge would abruptly erode as medical innovators would no longer have incentives to produce the miracle cures that Americans have come to expect.

Price controls do not work in other countries, and they will not work in America. In countries where price-setting policies are in place, patients literally die waiting for access to cures that are available in America.

This is why the Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity is calling on the U.S. Senate to reject Schumer’s scheme and instead pursue policies that bolster American medical innovation and provide incentives for our scientists and researchers to continue providing extraordinary, cutting-edge therapies and cures for Americans on Medicare and, indeed, for all Americans.