“The Bill Will Harm The Ability Of Patients To Obtain Medications They Need At Prices They Can Afford”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, ahead of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health markup on H.R. 485:
“It is with great concern for protecting the ability of policymakers to utilize value analysis to ensure patients can obtain the best prescription drugs at the most appropriate and affordable prices, that Patients For Affordable Drugs Now (P4ADNow) strongly urges members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health to vote against H.R. 485, the Protecting Health Care for All Patients Act of 2023, in its current form. The bill will not protect health care for all patients. Rather, it will harm the ability of patients to obtain the medications they need at prices they can afford and will prevent them from getting critical information on the value of drugs.
“As a patient with an incurable cancer whose drugs carry a combined list price of more than $900,000 per year, I know firsthand the importance of a drug price system that fairly prices drugs based on their value to patients. This bill aims to block the use of value analysis in the United States, a tool already used by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Medicaid, and many employers who provide drug coverage for millions of Americans. It goes beyond prohibiting the use of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), a measure we do not advocate for at P4ADNow, and instead threatens the use of any form of value analysis in drug price assessment.
“H.R. 485 will undermine current and future reforms to empower the federal government’s ability to rein in taxpayer spending and lower prices of drugs with unjustified price tags and little clinical benefit. Specifically, the bill could jeopardize the hard-won drug price reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act which are already lowering costs for patients.
“It is axiomatic that to stimulate and reward innovative new drug development, we should pay more for high value drugs and less for low value drugs. Without value analysis, we lose a key tool to measure value for patients.
“Members of Congress must use their power to preserve value analysis as part of a reliable system that clearly and transparently assesses the value of drugs as one central factor to arrive at appropriate prices by voting no on H.R. 485 as currently written.”
###