Healthcare

Washington, DC — Today, Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) questioned the Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan in a Budget Committee hearing, after Secretary Azar declined to testify. Rep. Doggett asked Deputy Secretary Hargan why the Trump Administration’s budget declines to invest in lowering the price of prescription drugs or empowering Medicare to negotiate, as President Trump called for when he was Candidate Trump. Specifically, Rep. Doggett asked about the overdose prevention drug naloxone and was told by the Trump Administration witness that there was no affordability problem. You can watch the exchange here, or read the excerpts below. After the hearing Rep. Doggett stated: “It is difficult to agree on how to solve the problem of high prescription drug prices when Trump’s HHS does not even acknowledge the crisis exists.”

Washington, DC — Today, Chairman Doggett held a Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing on medicines in Medicare. Hearing from experts testifying to policy options and patient experience, it explored ways that Medicare can encourage affordability, competition, and access to medicines, as patients face a prescription drug affordability crisis. It featured expert witnesses Frederick Isasi, Executive Director, Families USA; Robin Feldman, Director of the Institute for Innovation Law, UC Hastings College of Law; Ameet Sarpatwari, Assistant Director of the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) Harvard Medical School; Amy Kapczysnki, Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale Law School; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum.

WASHINGTON, DC – House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Lloyd Doggett announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing, entitled “Promoting Competition to Lower Medicare Drug Prices” on Thursday, March 7, 2019, at 10:00 a.m. in room 1100 Longworth House Office Building.