Congress

Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC) said Thursday (July 25) it is “very likely” the Trump administration will take its own steps to lower drug prices in Part D, though the details are in flux. Meadows said he attended a drug-pricing meeting Wednesday between President Donald Trump and drug lobbyists that was first reported by Politico.

Thirteen Republican senators and one Democrat voted Thursday (July 25) to kill President Donald Trump’s plan to connect Medicare payment for physician-administered drugs to foreign drug prices in a rebuke of one of the administration’s last remaining drug-pricing policies.

A measure to ban drug rebates that aren’t shared at the point of sale might be added to the Senate Finance Committee’s drug pricing bill before a floor vote, Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and ranking Democrat Ron Wyden (OR) said Thursday (July 25) during the bill’s markup.

House Energy & Commerce member William McKinley (R-WV) hopes to eliminate legal barriers to generic market entry through legislation that would narrow the situations in which brand-drug makers can litigate patents while still maintaining intellectual property protections.

Air ambulance providers are pressing Senate health committee leaders to change the surprise billing policy in their cost-cutting legislation to better address out-of-network air ambulance bills by updating the Medicare reimbursement rate, requiring all insurers cover air ambulances and increasing the reimbursement rate above the median in-network rate for a geographic area.

Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and ranking Democrat Patty Murray (D-WA) said the Senate doesn't have time to consider their committee’s cost-cutting package, which includes legislation to end surprise billing and lower drug prices, but they didn't say why.

An FDA expert said the two-year deal reached by Congress and the White House on Monday (July 22) to raise the government’s budget caps is good for FDA in that it moves Congress closer to passing a 6% funding increase for the agency for fiscal 2020.

The Senate Finance Committee unveiled a long-awaited drug-pricing bill, to be marked up Thursday (July 25), that includes monumental changes to drug-pricing policy in Medicare and Medicaid -- including restructuring the Part D benefit, imposing controversial inflationary rebates in Medicare Parts B and D, and raising the rebate cap in Medicaid.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s drug-price negotiation bill will be unveiled in early September to give drug makers less time to undermine the plan over the August recess and the Congressional Budget Office more time to formally score the bill, senior Pelosi aide Wendell Primus said Monday (July 22).