Yesterday, Marsha Simon spoke to MedPage Today about how she believed Joe Biden would approach the issue of drug pricing if he wins the Presidential election. Specifically, she said that if Biden wins, she expected him to “rein in the more outrageous behavior of the drug companies. For example, several companies are denying 340B discounts to some safety net providers, which should result in the loss of access to the Medicaid market, but the Trump administration has done nothing.” Marsha also noted that Biden’s ability to achieve reforms “turns on Democrats also taking the Senate majority since [Republican leader] Mitch McConnell refuses to take up the Grassley bill” containing modest drug price reforms.”
“Historically, Joe Biden has not been a champion of restraining drug prices — reflecting both the role of drug manufacturers as important employers in Delaware and, after the Obama administration, his apparent greater interest in novel drug development to treat cancer than in access to these expensive new drugs,” Marsha added. If Trump is re-elected, Simon expects him to “continue his approach to reining in drug prices — proposing genuine reform such as European Union reference pricing, for example — while implementing marginal policies such as the Medicare insulin demonstration that will have only a marginal impact on access to affordable drugs for a few seniors with insulin-dependent diabetes enrolled in certain Medicare drug plans.”