DRUG-PRICING PUSH — Vice President Kamala Harris wants more drugs to be negotiated by Medicare, but her plan to implement an expansion if elected president remains unclear. Her campaign website lends some clues: She wants to expedite the negotiations to lower drug prices for Americans. Drug-pricing experts say that likely means adding more drugs each year to what’s laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act or potentially drawing name-brand drugs into price talks after a shorter period of time on the market. The Harris campaign did not respond to questions about the policy proposal. Both approaches would require Democrats to regain control of both chambers of Congress, according to Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. There is a legislative starting point. A House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrat spokesperson pointed to the Lowering Drug Costs for American Families Act — introduced last year by Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Education and the Workforce Committee ranking member Bobby Scott (D-Va.). That bill would increase the number of drugs selected for negotiation each year from 20 to 50 starting in 2029, extend negotiated prices to those with private health insurance and apply the IRA’s restrictions on increasing drug prices faster than inflation to people with private health plans. A recent Congressional Budget Office report estimated that increasing the number of drugs negotiated each year would reduce average drug prices by 0.1 to 3 percent, making negotiated prices available to merchants would cut them 1 to 3 percent and requiring drugmakers to pay inflation rebates on drug price hikes in the private market, not just to those on Medicare would reduce them 1 to 3 percent. “To the extent that the negotiation program is expected to save money, expansions of the program, at least within Medicare, serve as a potential pay-for for other priorities that parties may have,” said Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University, and former senior adviser in the HHS Office of the General Counsel in the Biden administration. Craig Garthwaite, a professor at Northwestern University and economist who focuses on health care, said the program’s most consequential change would be introducing drugs to price talks sooner in their lifespan. But he argued that Democrats should wait a few years to understand how prices set by the program have impacted biopharmaceutical investment before making further changes. “I don’t think we’ve fully seen even the initial effects of the IRA, and we’re talking about changing the policy,” Garthwaite said. IT’S TUESDAY. WELCOME BACK TO PRESCRIPTION PULSE. Why do we exist in a world where your author is forced to root for the Yankees in the World Series? Send tips to David Lim (dlim@politico.com or @davidalim) and Lauren Gardner ( lgardner@politico.com or @Gardner_LM).
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