USCC|Drug Price Reduction—A Hot Topic of Debate

04-02

Yijian Guan

New York Times

Editor: Zhiyi Zhu

On October 17, the second formal session of US Senate Committee on Finance came to cloture after a round of heated debate on Health Care issues. A range of subtopics were included in the discussion focusing on 2 Working Papers, among which the reporter found that Drug Price Handling became highly essential and controversial, since it triggered multiple participants to argue over the problems.

According to a detailed Working Paper of bloc Republican, domestic pharmaceutical

providers were to be encouraged to cooperate with providers of foreign countries; as an action that cut down manufacturing price of drugs. However, a representative of US pharmaceutical company raised questions on this briefly drafted section: 「To maintain high quality and efficiency on research and development of new drug for current diseases, corporation with foreign companies may reveal defect, and we may not be able to reduce the price.」

By now, still no response was informed to the reporter that could offer a practical solution. Yet, the reporter has been convinced that drug price reduction is one of the fundamental and most urgent challenges in the senate, although a reasonable and feasible policy clearly needs more consideration. Let』s assume the import of foreign drugs is initiated and what next? As a result, not only will the basic problems of monopoly remain unsolved, while business profits and employment of the country are also to be put in risks. Furthermore, the 「reliability of foreign brands is doubtful」, as Sen. Menendez later argued on the topic. Indeed, both quantity and quality of pharmaceutical production are best supervised and controlled by the federal government, instead of foreigner countries that may be asked to produce an exceeding amount of medicines.

In addition, the reporter believes that the internal development of the pharmaceutical market is necessary, since the supply of latest medicines play an important role in the Health Care system. Meanwhile, policies that stimulate the market by encouraging competitions between companies are favored by some other senators. Sen. Menendez, as mentioned above, presented several concepts especially on the topic of benign competitions. Along with other senators, he proposed ideas in a Working Paper: In market where competition exists, government will not interfere as long as the equilibrium is not broken, otherwise it may consider intense regulation to prevent monopoly. As they foresee, drug price will effectively reduce through competitions, also the sustainable development of pharmaceutical market is guaranteed.

In conclusion, senators from both parties actively involved in this session, yet few more problems remain to be handled. On the subtopic of drug price reduction, Sen. Hatch reaffirmed his appeal to the committee: 「We welcome further cooperation with delegates to negotiate on this topic.」 The reporter looks forward to more viable and concrete solutions as we step to a new stage of conference.