WASHINGTON, DC - Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is joining Energy and Commerce Republican Leader Greg Walden (R-OR) for a video series that began last week aimed at providing the facts on Speaker Pelosi’s partisan plan for fewer cures.
In the fourth video in the series released today, titled “Debunking the Dems’ Research Talking Point," Walden and Crenshaw tackle the misleading claim from Democrats that Speaker Pelosi’s drug pricing scheme will boost medical research into new cures. The lawmakers describe why taking trillions of dollars out of private sector innovation - something many fear will happen under Pelosi’s plan - and replacing where innovation happens with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a gross misunderstanding of how the drug development cycle works.
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Full Transcript
Crenshaw: Okay, one last talking point from the Democrats is, if you’re not convinced yet, is the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. They say that the savings that we would incur from this would go straight to NIH and they’ll do all the innovation. Is that really how NIH works?
Walden: It’s not, and look, Fred Upton and me and Diana DeGette, Republicans and Democrats passed something called 21st Century Cures years ago. And Republicans going back to Newt Gingrich doubled the investment in NIH, but they do basic research. They’re brilliant, really amazing scientists. That money flows out into our universities, it’s really important. But it’s a big step between that sort of basic research and then somebody taking that and going through the trials and developing the drug and all that. So it doesn’t replace what happens.
Crenshaw: They’re building a base of science and then everybody can feed upon so there’s a good ecosystem. But does the money even make sense? When you look at how much money is being invested in new drugs over time versus what NIH uses and how much extra money they would even get, it doesn’t even seem to match up.
Walden: We’re still trying to figure out all the implications and costs of this bill and so is the Congressional Budget Office. But having said that, you could take a trillion dollars out of innovation, just think about wiping out NIH. In effect that’s what happens potentially under this bill. It’s the equivalent of just, NIH is gone.
Crenshaw: Which would not be good.
Walden: And that’s just the estimates around the impact on government revenues. So if you extend this out - and they haven’t yet - into beyond Medicare to Medicaid and to the private sector, it’s going to be a much bigger number.
The final four videos in the series will be released next week.
FULL VIDEO SERIES
Watch each video in the #FewerCures Facts series using the links below:
1. “Impact on Cures"
2. “Tax on Cures & Impact on Innovators"
3. “Debunking the Dems’ VA Talking Point"
