Bipartisan Senate Working Group on Health Care Price Transparency Receives Nearly 1,000 Pages of Feedback
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) announced they received nearly 1,000 pages of feedback from more than 130 groups and individuals in response to their February 28th letter to health care and patient communities seeking input on drafting legislation to improve price and quality transparency in the health care market and lower costs. Grassley specifically requested feedback from Iowans such as the Iowa Hospital Association, the Iowa Primary Care Association, the Iowa Medical Society and the University of Iowa regarding ways to improve transparency in the health care industry to reduce costs. The feedback will be publicly available at a later date.
“Patients should be able to see the price of a procedure or test before they get it done, not months later when they get a surprise bill in the mail,” the senators said. “Health care price and quality transparency will encourage accountability, competition, better results and lower costs. We greatly appreciate all the input we received from a wide variety of stakeholders across the ideological spectrum. Their ideas and suggestions will help us improve and create tools and policies to ensure patients have better cost and quality information as they make choices about their health care.”
Grassley has long been an advocate for transparency-based solutions to problems related to drug pricing. He has introduced and supported policies to make cheaper generic versions of drugs more easily available to patients. In 2009, Grassley co-authored the bipartisan Physician Payments Sunshine Act which requires drug and medical device companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for speaking fees, research grants, trips and other items of value. This Sunshine Law brings transparency to a big part of the health care system for public benefit. While these financial relationships may be important to research and innovation, transparency discloses any potential conflicts of interest which could contribute to higher costs.
In 2017, Grassley wrote several letters to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb expressing concerns and advocating for legislative solutions to problems on drug pricing and availability of generic prescription medications. Grassley wrote a letter to Gottlieb asking FDA to review the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act which addresses anticompetitive practices currently used by some brand-name pharmaceutical companies to delay the manufacture and introduction of generic drugs in the market. Grassley also led a group of bipartisan senators in a letter urging Gottlieb to address abuses in the regulatory process that delay competition and increase prescription drug costs. It advocates for the Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act, legislation Grassley cosponsored.
Most recently, Grassley introduced the Ensuring the Value of the 340B Program Act that would inject needed transparency into the 340b program which allows hospitals and other health care entities to receive discounted prices on prescription drugs and biologics from drug manufacturers.
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