WASHINGTON, DC - Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is joining Energy and Commerce Republican Leader Greg Walden (R-OR) for a video series aimed at providing the facts on Speaker Pelosi’s partisan plan for fewer cures.
In the sixth video in the series released today, titled “GOP Solutions: The Path Forward," Walden and Crenshaw outline a bipartisan path forward to lower drug costs for Americans. Walden and Crenshaw stress that we don’t need to keep lifesaving cures from Americans in order to relieve the cost burden at the pharmacy counter. The lawmakers make clear that lower costs and more cures are not mutually exclusive.
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Full Transcript
Walden: You don’t have to go that far to get prices down, and stop the gaming and there are ways to get the savings directly to the consumer like we talked about with insulin. And the Democrats all voted against that. So what are they trying to accomplish?
Crenshaw: They want their solution because it works better for their base or whatever it is. But what are our solutions? We already talked about the insulin solution.
Walden: There are a couple of things. I want to make sure there’s competition. I’m a private sector person, I believe in it and I think competition works. If you put the consumer first and drive the policy to make it what’s best for the consumer, then you should get innovation, competition, if you have competition that helps drive prices down.
Crenshaw: The only force that has ever driven prices down. I’m not sure of any price setting that has ever occurred in the history of the world that has created more supply and lowered prices.
Walden: Where is the innovation coming from? High tech, it’s here. Drugs, it’s here. We are the great innovators. By the way, there are lots of jobs associated with that. There are universities in our communities working on the next cure. You look at what’s been done as a result of our work on 21st Century Cures through NIH and elsewhere, they now believe they have a cure to sickle cell anemia. If you saw recently Secretary Azar and a representative from NIH went to Congo. We believe we have a vaccine and a treatment for Ebola. Can you imagine, Ebola? A treatable disease that can be now vaccinated against? It’s working. That’s where we should be focused and so what we do is incent innovation through new investments at NIH but then we also maintain a market that will back that up and actually get that research into a new medicine that actually gets out the other end to patients who need it. Now we’ve found some things, gaming in the system. Where some of these companies, some of the bad actors were withholding samples of their drugs so the next generic couldn’t be created.
Crenshaw: And that’s what I was going to ask about, what part do generics play in this? That’s what creates the new competition and that’s what lowers prices.
Walden: Yeah, we have a bill called CREATES and it says you can’t do that anymore; you have to give that sample.
Crenshaw: We’re taking a scalpel to this problem.
Walden: Let me tell you what happened. We passed that unanimously out of the Energy & Commerce Committee. And then as the bill came to the floor, the Speaker’s office attached things unrelated to that that they knew Republicans could not support.
Crenshaw: They like to do that, don’t they?
Walden: And so, we had to vote against it. Not because of CREATES but because of other things. And the other thing we found, another way the system was being gamed by some bad actors was okay, you develop your generic, I got the original, why don’t we work out a little deal here so you don’t go to market. I’ll just pay you to delay, it’s called pay-for-delay. So we put a pin in that one. There was another one similar to that about parking and all this stuff. And then we passed some other bills, very technical and in the weeds about making sure people know where the patents are, when they expire. Because what we want to do is clean up the system, so that new innovators can come around, and so competitors can have a fair shake at putting a competing drug out there. Once you get a market created, then things begin to work.
The seventh video in the series, titled “GOP Solutions - Unleashing American Innovation," will be released tomorrow.
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"
4. “Debunking the Dems’ Research Talking Point"
5. “GOP Solutions: Insulin Savings"