Congressman Cohen Votes to Lower Prescription Drug Prices

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today voted for, and the House passed H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, a comprehensive bill that prevents Americans from having to pay more for their medicines than what Big Pharma charges for the same drugs in other countries.

The vote on passage was 230 to 192.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

"The House is keeping its ‘for the people' promise to America, today voting on a comprehensive plan to lower prescription drug prices and reform an industry known for unexplainable price hikes on life-saving medications while industry CEOs make billions of dollars. This bill literally puts money back in the pockets of consumers, and is a major step in the right direction."

The Lower Drug Costs Now Act:

• Gives Medicare the power to negotiate directly with the drug companies, and creates powerful new tools to force drug companies to the table to agree to real price reductions, while ensuring seniors never lose access to the prescriptions they need.

• Makes the lower drug prices negotiated by Medicare available to Americans with private insurance, not just Medicare beneficiaries.
• Stops drug companies ripping off Americans while charging other countries less for the same drugs, limiting the maximum price for any negotiated drug to be in line with the average price in countries like ours, where drug companies charge less for the same drugs – and admit they still make a profit.
• Creates a new, $2,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, and reverses years of unfair price hikes above inflation across thousands of drugs in Medicare.
• Reinvests the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings in the most transformational improvement to Medicare since its creation – delivering vision, dental and hearing benefits – and turbocharging the search for new cures.

Additionally, H.R. 3's expansion of Medicare coverage for dental, vision and hearing services represents a significant out-of-pocket savings for seniors.

• 99 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in TN-09 (105,000 people) are estimated to gain dental benefits;
• 81 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in TN-09 (86,000 people) are estimated to obtain vision benefits;
• 87 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in TN-09 (92,500 people) are estimated to secure hearing benefits.

Congressman Cohen is a member of the Congressional Medicare for All Caucus and is co-leading the Diabetes Prevention Semipostal Act (H.R. 4914), which would raise revenue and direct it to research on diabetes, a disease that in Memphis is above the national average.