Go after him: GOP strategists say Republicans need to bash Biden on drug prices

Still, the effort to reframe the drug pricing debate comes as Democrats prepare to wrestle the issue up and down next year’s ballot against a Republican Party unlikely to give ground in campaign attacks and more likely to focus on the border and on inflation.

A new poll conducted by the nonprofit KFF shows that 58% of independent voters trust Democrats will lower drug costs compared to 39% of Republicans.

If they want to run their campaigns based on keeping pharmaceutical companies high profits, welcome, Senator. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told POLITICO. Why don’t they try and see how well President Biden is doing? Because people will understand that older adults want to see cheaper drugs.

However, Republicans are working out the best strategy to thwart early Medicare drug price talks.

Republicans need to figure out how to pursue it, said Joe Grogan, a Republican strategist who served as a domestic policy adviser to former President Donald Trump. They prosecute him by confronting him directly: he is killing clinical programs by substantially limiting the amount of treatments.

Grogan said the negotiation process can stifle innovation by asking makers of select drugs to agree to a final negotiated rate or drop Medicare and Medicaid, which can amount to 40 percent of total revenue depending on the drugmaker.

One company after another is making trade strategy changes because it has to get ahead of government price-fixing and ultimately [the] price extortion, Grogan said.

Some companies have said they are withdrawing funding for some clinical programs. Eli Lilly, for example, accused the IRA of withholding a $40 million cancer drug because of the trading scheme, according to a November report in Endpoints News.

Grogan added that drug companies may decide to no longer fund clinical trials that seek new uses for a drug already on the market.

It’s not about negotiating prices, it’s about setting them, and companies are responding by scrapping programs that will no longer be profitable in a high-risk industry to bring to market, he said.

But the question is what Republicans want and what they want [what is] the alternative here? White asked.

Congressional Republicans criticized Biden’s announcement on drug prices Tuesday, saying they will impose crippling price controls.

I hope our colleagues on both fronts can unite to mitigate these devastating effects and advance consensus-based, market-driven solutions to address access and affordability challenges, said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

But White admitted that right now Republicans don’t have a plan that shocks voters or that resonates with voters and is in stark contrast to what Democrats are offering.

The Republican-led House is working on bills to reform drug benefit managers, who some Republican lawmakers say act as middlemen who do not pass on discounts negotiated with drugmakers to patients.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is second behind Trump in most polls, has signed into law his own bill to regulate PBMs in the state. DeSantis’ campaign did not return a request for comment on Tuesday’s announcement.

This is a gimme, it seems to me. PBMs are everyone’s favorite villain these days, said Joe Antos, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.

So far, most 2024 campaigns have not presented detailed health policy plans and have been largely silent on drug pricing in particular.

One of the exceptions is the favorite – Trump.

He promises to roll back an executive order issued while in office that required the federal government to pay the same price for pharmaceuticals as overseas countries. The Biden administration withdrew the ordinance in 2021 after a federal judge overturned it.

We have been ripped off by everyone for so many decades. We are tired of it. It’s not going to happen, Trump said in a video on his campaign website.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has made sweeping statements about improving transparency and competition to reduce costs. He also proposed reviving Operation Warp Speed, the federal program created to accelerate vaccines against Covid-19, but for new drugs.

Strategists say candidates will need to explain their vision for health care as the campaign heats up. Except for abortion, health care has been largely absent from the first debate between Republican presidential candidates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, last week.

There is an opportunity and an obligation in the presidential campaign, Grogan said. Trump’s allegations have dominated much of the debate, but economic visions will need to be fleshed out.

David Lim contributed to this report.