Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) was among several congressmen who tried unsuccessfully to maintain negotiation rights. He proposed a bill that would have forced drug companies to match prices offered to other government programs (Medicaid, Veterans Administration) that do negotiate.
“I’m not here picking on PhRMA,” Nelson said at the time. “I just think, philosophically, that Medicare patients shouldn’t be paying more than Medicaid beneficiaries.”
But three Democrats — Sens. Baucus, Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), and Tom Carper (D-Delaware) — teamed with Republicans to ensure that Nelson’s bill was stillborn in committee. They were more interested in keeping their word to the drugmakers than in their duty to the American people.
“A deal is a deal,” Carper explained.
A less-noticed provision gave pharmaceutical companies the right to extend patents on biologic drugs to 12 years — compared to the five years that conventional drugs receive. This might prove to be the greatest budget-buster of them all.