Golden Leads Bipartisan Group to Send a Message to Leadership: Stop Playing Politics with Rx Drugs and the American People

WASHINGTON — Motivated by Congress' inability to address unsustainable prescription drug costs, Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) led a bipartisan group of members of Congress today to call out House leadership for their partisanship and unwillingness to take more aggressive action to lower drug prices. Reps. Anthony Gonzalez (OH-16), Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06), John Katko (NY-24), and Mike Gallagher (WI-08) joined Golden to send the letter calling on House leadership to drop their political games and put forward bipartisan legislation that will substantially lower prescription drug prices in America.

"This week, the U.S. House of Representatives had an opportunity to make meaningful, bipartisan progress in our work to lower drug costs for the American people. Unfortunately, the legislation we are voting on this week… is just a small step forward in helping families across the country dealing with the increasing cost of prescription drugs," the members wrote in their letter.

While any progress to lower drug costs for Americans is beneficial, H.R. 987 – the package of bills passed in the House today – was a missed opportunity to pass bipartisan legislation necessary to meaningfully lower the cost of health care. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the prescription drug provisions in H.R. 987 will save Americans around $4 billion over 10 years, a number that pales in comparison to the $333 billion paid by government, consumers, and insurers on prescription drugs in 2017 alone.

Rather than bring three bipartisan bills to the floor on their own, Democratic House leadership chose to add four ACA-related measures that did not attract bipartisan support and will almost surely doom the bill in the Senate. The letter also called for House leadership to take up a bipartisan prescription drug package that could pass into law.

"Our constituents sent us here to enact into law meaningful legislation to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, and we cannot do that without widespread bipartisan support in the House and Senate," continued the members of Congress. "We stand ready to work with [House leadership] on behalf of American families who for too long have endured the growing costs of prescription drugs. Now is the time to act on bipartisan proposals that can gain traction in the Senate."

In February, Congressman Golden introduced common-sense legislation to help combat the rising prices in prescription drugs that was not included in today's package. The FLAT Prices Act would discourage pharmaceutical companies spiking their prescription drug prices and limit big pharma monopolies to drive down costs. Golden is also a cosponsor of legislation to allow the importation of safe, affordable drugs from Canada and to allow the negotiation of lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

A copy of the letter can be found here.