On the heels of headline-grabbing price spikes on prescription drugs, a bipartisan Senate report on Wednesday will call on Congress to take action to prevent huge, unjustified cost increases on decades-old prescription medicines that have no competition.
The Senate Special Commission on Aging released a bipartisan report – Sudden Price Hikes in Off-Patent Prescription Drugs: The Monopoly Business Model that Harms Patients, Taxpayers, and the U.S. Health Care System. The results of a yearlong investigation, said that some drug companies behaved like hedge funds because of the influence of “activist investors.” These companies, the committee said, have developed a “business model that harms patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system.”
For years, Republicans have sided with drug companies in resisting legislation to restrain drug prices, on the ground that drug makers need additional revenue to pay for research. But President-elect Donald J. Trump scrambled the politics of the issue during the campaign, and the committee’s call for action comes amid a changing political dynamic.