Hillary Clinton targets medicine costs in campaign pledge

NEW YORK — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday announced plans that would reduce out-of-pocket drug costs for many American consumers should she be elected President of the United States. Clinton would also enable government agencies to negotiate price directly with pharmaceutical companies. 

 

According to reports, one proposal would limit how much patients could have to spend out of pocket for drugs to $250 a month, or $3,000 a year.

 

And the Clinton proposal places spending mandates on research and development and would remove pharmaceutical advertising as a coporate tax writeoff. 

 

Another tool to drive pharamceutical costs down proposed by Clinton includes allowing the importation of medicines from abroad, which is sure to draw criticism among the retail pharmacy industry. Allowing the importation of medicines not only circumvents community pharmacists, it also opens the closed U.S. pharmaceutical distribution system to counterfeiters. 

 

Since 2008, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy has been collecting data on websites selling medicine illegally online to United States patients. NABP has reviewed over 11,000 Internet drug outlets, finding that 96.1% of the sites reviewed operate out of compliance with U.S. pharmacy laws and practice standards. 

 

In an effort to combat global fraud, the Association recently launched the .Pharmacy Top-Level Domain Program to provide consumers around the world a means to identify safe and legal online pharmacies and related resources. NABP will grant use of the .pharmacy domain only to legitimate website operators that adhere to pharmacy laws in the jurisdictions in which they are based and in which their patients and customers reside, so that consumers can easily find safe online pharmacies. 

 

The news, of course, was not received well across the pharma industry. 

 

“Secretary Clinton’s proposal would turn back the clock on medical innovation and halt progress against the diseases that patients fear most," stated John Castellani, president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "These sweeping and far-reaching proposals would restrict patients’ access to medicines, result in fewer new treatments for patients, cost countless jobs across the country and erode our nation’s standing as the world leader in biomedical innovation," he said. 

 

“These proposals are driven by the false notion that spending on medicines is fueling overall health care cost growth and ignores how the current marketplace for medicines helps keep spending in check," Castellani said. "In reality, the share of health care spending attributable to medicines is projected to continue to grow in line with overall health care cost growth for at least the next decade. This is because competition and negotiation by payers result in steep discounts in medicine prices, and as a result of the current patent system 90% of medicines used are low-cost generic copies."  

 

In the video above, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton meets and talks with a local caregiver.