Press Release
March 16, 2022
Testimony on the Build Back Better Act’s Prescription Drug Policies and their Potential Impacts
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance, AAF President Douglas Holtz-Eakin discusses proposals for lowering prescription drug prices included in the House-passed Build Back Better Act (BBBA).
His key points:
- The BBBA would establish an explicit government price-setting regime for pharmaceuticals, reaching into all corners of the U.S. health sector, both public and private;
- The BBBA proposals would harm consumers and negatively impact health equity through reduced innovation and higher launch prices for drugs and therapies;
- The BBBA proposals would harm and endanger the economic activity generated by the biopharmaceutical industry in the United States;
- There are better ways to lower drug prices than those put forward in the BBBA; and
- Reducing drug prices should in no way be framed as addressing the consumer price inflation problem in the United States.