Prescription Drug Costs Are Rising as a Campaign Issue
Last edited Tue Sep 22, 2015, 10:31 AM - Edit history (1)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/upshot/prescription-drug-costs-are-rising-as-a-campaign-issue.html?_r=0
Mr. Sanders introduced a bill in Congress this month, spelling out a host of policy changes to drive down drug costs. Mrs. Clinton tweeted on Monday that her plan would be released Tuesday, and her campaign has released some details.
Mr. Sanders said that hearing about this difficulty in obtaining needed medicines motivated his proposal. “It is totally absurd that if somebody does have health insurance and they walk into a doctor’s office and the doctor writes a prescription, they can’t fill it,” he said in an interview. “What sense is that?”
Both candidates’
proposals include provisions that would allow Americans to import drugs from Canada, and that would
allow the Medicare program to negotiate with drug makers when purchasing medications for the program. The
Sanders plan also would require companies to share more information about their research and development costs, and increase penalties on pharmaceutical companies found guilty of fraud. The Clinton plan would impose a requirement that drug companies spend a set percentage of their revenues on research and development, and would cap the amount insurance companies could ask customers to pay each month for their medications to $250.
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