Healthcare
One patient got a $3,606 bill for a four-mile ride. Another was charged $8,460 for a trip from a hospital that could not handle his case to another that could. Still another found herself marooned at an out-of-network hospital, where she'd been taken by ambulance without her consent.
Over 50 members of Congress are calling on President Donald Trump to direct the National Institutes of Health to issue guidance on when it will exercise so called "march-in rights," effectively canceling exclusivity when patented drugs are not available on reasonable terms. The lawmakers and one consumer advocacy group held up the process as a solution to Trump's promise to bring down drug prices.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Rep. Doggett and Lawmakers to NIH and HHS: Act Now on Drug Affordability
WASHINGTON, March 28 - A group of Senate and House lawmakers led by Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), co-chairs of the Prescription Drug Taskforce, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), today urged the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to step in to lower the cost of a prostate cancer drug, Xtandi, which costs four times more in the United States than in other major countries.