Here's some more information about it, from the advocacy webpage we set up.
Please ask your Senators to support the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act (PDPRA), a bipartisan bill that will lower your out of pocket Medicare and Medicaid costs, protect cancer research and insure that Americans with prostate cancer will have affordable access to new and otherwise highly expensive medicine.
I've written out a summary of the PDPRA's highlights, below.
Over one million Medicare beneficiaries face financial toxicity and disincentives to maintain life-saving medication compliance. The PDPRA will reduce Medicare reinsurance payments from 80% to 20% over three years, while simultaneously increasing insurers’ share of cost responsibility from 15% to 60%. The bill also requires that drug manufacturers pay a 20% rebate in the catastrophic phase.
The PDPRA proposes establishing a maximum add-on payment of $1,000 per drug, biologic, or biosimilar that is administered on a calendar date beginning on January 1, 2021, reducing doctor incentive to prescribe higher-priced Part D drugs that often have minimal health value for patients.
The PDPRA requires drug manufacturers to exclude the value of patient assistance co-payment coupons from the calculation of average sales price (ASP). When the value of co-payment coupons is high, ASP tends to overstate the amount drug manufacturers are receiving for their product, which results in de facto higher Medicare Part B payments.
The PDPRA establishes a new $3,100 out-of-pocket cap for patients on drug spending. The PDPRA also includes various provisions intended to lower drug prices. These provisions include requiring price concessions (rebates) from manufacturers payable to the government if drug prices (specifically, list prices in Part D and average sales prices in Part B) grow faster than inflation, and modifications to Medicaid drug rebates.
The PDPRA is a common-sense repair to a health care system in need of help. It is a life-saver for prostate cancer patients who can not afford medications.
And Mitch McConnell has said he would block it and refuse to bring it to a vote in the Senate. The real issue is that there is no way the Repubs will permit Medicare negotiation of drug prices. Ever. In any manner, whatsoever.
The reasoning for the not-take-a-vote strategy, as I understand it is to permit weak Repub Senators to pretend to claim to support it, or be wishy washy on it.... while never having to take a vote on it.
Visit 1 -
If this is the same Act that I am thinking of, the only way to get it passed is to collect whatever Kentucky constituents he has, get them to visit his office in DC, and:
(a) convince him they are single issue voters, and
(b) convince him that they will activate and cause him a lot of trouble in Kentucky,
There is no way he will even pretend to listen to anyone who is not a Kentucky constituent. Unless you can vote for him, influence Kentucky votes for him, or are willing and able to write some big checks, you have nothing that he wants.
Prep for Visit 2 -
After the first visit throw up some blogs, facebook group pages, themed on Kentuckians for Drug Price Negotiation. (this can be done perhaps by non-Kentucky people assisting Kentucky constituents)
Visit 2 -
Then visit him again with a written commitment you want him to sign that:
(a) he supports Medicare negotiation of drug prices,
(b) he will permit a vote on this issue, and
(c) he will not permit that provision to be removed behind closed doors in committee.
After Visit 2 -
Continue to work on social media re the theme of Medicare negotiation of drug prices.
I have live experience conducting lobbying. Without Mitch McConnell on board, the other activity will not have any effect because the other repub Senators report to him, not vice versa.
Now there one alternative though implausible alternative.
If we could recruit 3 or 4 Repub Senators who would be willing to tell Mitch, if he refuses to cooperate on this issue, they will coordinate with the Dems on procedural matters (not the end vote, just procedure) on President Trump's impeachment... Mitch would do whatever they ask him to do on this issue. (if you could do that even with 2 Repub Senators, it would probably work)
Not plausible, but theoretically possible.
I have material experience doing real legislative lobbying in my career. This is really how it works.... to get results. You need to have something they want.
Your analysis is good. The House Bill got the ball rolling but is dead on arrival in the Senare. McConnell is against the House bill which we supported and did indeed pass the House. This new bill is a modified version that is -remarkably - championed by Grassley. A bit watered down from HR3, but represents meaningful change . This new bill has a chance with grassroots support. This Forbes article explains it well google.com/amp/s/www.forbes...
One part of it scares me a little. They are shifting a lot of economic pressure to the Medicare supplemental insurers. They are still basically protecting the Pharma and big Pharma's pricing power.
The pressure they put on the insurers, will likely boomerang on prostate cancer patients in the form of more restrictive formularies.
The legislation will reduce patient out of pocket costs, but it will end up restricting our access to all these new drugs coming out. Perhaps seriously reducing our access.
And it looks like they are going impair the utility of the part b medication loophole (it's too complicated to explain while typing on a phone lol.. but it is much more difficult to restrict access to medications under part b than under part d).
The Pharmas are the highest margin and most profitable companies in the world. Without them taking some of the burden (via negotiated pricing) reducing patient costs will likely result in reduced access to the newer treatments coming out for prostate cancer.
The Pharmas are so darn profitable that even reducing their margins in half would not reduce their economic incentives to generate new treatments. The gating factors that are limiting new treatment development are not economic.
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