Bicameral Effort to Stop Proposed Rule Undermining Long-Standing Tool to Restrain Price Gouging for Taxpayer-Funded Drugs

Press Release

Today, over 35 bicameral members of Congress, led by U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chairman of the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee, submitted a public comment opposing a Trump-era proposed rule to revoke the federal government's ability to protect taxpayer investments and reasonable prices for prescription drugs and other patented inventions. The 32 House members were joined by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

Despite grandiose promises and aggressive rhetoric regarding high drug prices, former President Trump failed to lower the cost of prescription drugs by a penny. Instead, he spent four years delaying and dithering while patients suffered--offering only modest proposals and bypassing rulemaking requirements so that Big Pharma would suffer no harm to its bottom line. Just before leaving office, he snuck in one dangerous proposed rule at the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies (NIST), within the Commerce Department, that would undermine existing federal authority to lower the price of drugs developed with taxpayer dollars. Representative Doggett led colleagues in urging then-President Trump to use this authority on vital medicines in April 2017. You can read their request here. Four years later, Trump's negative response has finally arrived through this damaging, proposed rule.

"By financing pharmaceutical research, taxpayers earn the right to obtain affordable access to the resulting medication. Instead of negotiating reasonable prices on COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, life-saving cancer drugs, and other essential medicines developed with taxpayer dollars, Trump gave Big Pharma billions in tax dollars and tax windfalls together with exclusive monopoly power. Manufacturers are enabled to earn billions exploiting the sick and dying with sky-high prices on taxpayer-funded inventions," said Congressman Doggett. "Now, a leftover proposed rule working through the regulatory process would prohibit the government from ever exercising its authority to protect taxpayer investments and prevent price gouging. Under this proposed rule, taxpayers would continue to be hit twice for many drugs--once when they pay for drug research and again when Big Pharma abuses its monopoly to extract an excessive price."

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