Rising Prescription Drug Costs

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, November 8, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the new Medicare part B premiums starting in January 2020 will increase by $9.10 a month, a 6.7 percent increase over last year.

In dollars and cents, this means that premiums will go to $144.60 a month, up from $135 a month. As seniors know all too well, that $144 will be deducted automatically from their Social Security checks, which is a bitter pill given the fact that Social Security itself is slated only to rise by 1.6 percent starting January 1.

Very simply, that $9-a-month increase for millions of seniors will chew up a large part of any COLA that they can possibly receive starting in January.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to footstop that point about the fact that the Social Security system's COLA, which is tied to general inflation in the economy, is going up 1.6 percent; whereas, the Medicare part B premium, which is tied to healthcare costs, is going up 6.7 percent.

This is something that we know is endemic throughout the healthcare system. In the State of Connecticut, the Department of Insurance increased commercial insurance rates, that went up again above inflation, and identified the fact that prescription drug cost was the primary cost driver.

The Center for Medicare Services last Friday, when they announced the Medicare part B premiums, also confirmed the fact that it is prescription drug costs that are driving that 6.7 percent increase.

The increase in prescription drug costs that Medicare paid from 2018 to 2019 was 10 percent, and they are projecting that it is going to go to 10.10 percent in 2020; thus, we have a $9 increase coming up in terms of people's premiums.

This is not going to come as a great surprise to the American people. If you go back to last year's election in 2018, the exit polls showed that the number one issue that people cared about and were concerned about and wanted Congress to act on was healthcare costs--more specifically, prescription drug costs.

That was an election that had the largest voter turnout since 1914 in a midterm election and elected a new majority with a 10-million-vote plurality.

So, that is the context that we are in right now, at a moment where this Congress, and particularly the House of Representatives, is poised to take up H.R. 3, which is the Lower Drug Costs Now Act. And in the midst of all the media focus on impeachment, it is important to know that the committees that have cognizance over healthcare--the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Education and Labor Committee, on which I sit--reported out basically the same version of H.R. 3.

And it is, again, a matter of just a couple of weeks for the Congressional Budget Office to finish scoring the bill that we are going to take up that measure for a vote.

What does it do? It basically unhandcuffs the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies. By law, they have been prohibited, with what is called the noninterference clause, from negotiating lower drug prices.

The VA system has been negotiating prescription drug costs for decades, and, in fact, they get a much better price for veterans in America than the folks who, again, are covered by Medicare.

So that noninterference clause is going to be scaled back. DHS is going to be able to negotiate the 250 highest brand-name drug costs tied to an international price index--because America pays the highest drug costs by far. The next highest country is Switzerland, and they pay 25 percent less than we do here in the U.S.

Again, what do those savings mean in terms of folks on Medicare? Already CBO has told us, for people on part D, which is the outpatient prescription drug benefit, they, again, will see a reduction in the out-of-pocket costs, which today are unlimited in terms of any copayments that they are paying for medications. That will be capped at $2,000.

I have a constituent up in Killingly, Connecticut; she is a retired teacher. She has AFib. She is on Medicare part D. It has been a great help to her. But those copayments, because the AFib medication is so expensive, cost her $13,000 a year.

That will be brought down to $2,000 a year if we pass H.R. 3, and that is just one example of the benefits--$350 billion in savings to Medicare over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Again, this is a program, Medicare, which is slated to go into negative territory, according to the trustee, starting in 2026. We are giving a $350 billion lifeline to Medicare to make sure that it is an enduring program moving forward in the future.

That is why organizations like AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, and the Small Business Majority are supporting H.R. 3.

It is time to sit up and pay attention to what just happened last week to Medicare and pass H.R. 3 for America's patients and seniors.

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