The bill also includes mandatory rebates to the federal government when a drug’s price rises faster than the rate of inflation. It includes an annual cap on out-of-pocket spending on pharmaceuticals of $2,000 for Medicare Part D participants.
The bill was contentious from its introduction, which erased bipartisan work across the committees of jurisdiction, including a number of individual bills that passed at the committee level with bipartisan support.
The price negotiation scheme, using the international benchmark, was a key point of objection, which some argued was more akin to price-setting.
“Government price setting will kill innovation in clinical areas where it is most needed,” Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.) said during the floor debate. “The pricing scheme outlined in H.R. 3 would disincentivize research and development for drugs that are first in their class, such as the future cure for Alzheimer’s.”
The CBO estimates that if the bill were enacted, “8 fewer drugs would be introduced to the U.S. market over the 2020-2029 period, and about 30 fewer drugs over the subsequent decade.”
An amendment offered by House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) attempted to replace the language of H.R. 3 with substitute language that collected all the individual drug pricing–related bills that had previously passed with bipartisan support at the committee level, but that was voted down by 223-201 vote with 12 members not voting.
Rep. Walden noted that policies within his substitute “unanimously passed the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year. They would have unanimously passed on this House floor had a poison pill not been put in up in the Rules Committee.”
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) countered that Rep. Walden’s amendment “doesn’t tackle the fundamental problem, which is reducing drug prices. This amendment fails to solve the main problem of actually lowering drug prices.”