Momentum Builds For Welch Drug Price Negotiation Measure

Press Release

Sixty-nine Members of Congress have joined Rep. Peter Welch in an effort to ensure that final health care reform legislation includes a provision requiring the federal government to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.

In a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Welch and his colleagues urged her to retain the provision, which would reduce drug prices for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D and lower costs to taxpayers. Welch successfully included the provision in health reform legislation passed by the Energy and Commerce Committee in July.

Welch wrote in the letter, "We strongly believe that the federal government should use its purchasing power to lower the cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens as well as taxpayers. Any health care legislation signed into law should give authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate with drug companies to lower drug prices within the Medicare Part D program."

In 2004 Congress - at the urging of the pharmaceutical industry - barred HHS from negotiating Medicare Part D prices directly with drug companies. One of Welch's first votes after taking office in January 2007 was to reverse that decision. While that bill - the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act (H.R. 4) - passed the House by an overwhelming majority, it failed to pass in the Senate.

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