Prescription Drug Socialism Nips Life-Saving Cures In The Bud

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding prescription drug socialism:

"Last week, the Biden Administration rolled out the second wave of guidance in the price-fixing scheme it calls the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. But as I said the first time around, the word 'negotiation' is doing a lot of work in that name.

"Calling Administration bureaucrats' strong-arm tactic a 'negotiation' is like calling jury duty a paid vacation!

"What we're really talking about here is prescription drug socialism.

"The Administration is dictating to America's world-leading medical innovators the 'Maximum Fair Price' for their products. In response, producers have three choices: eat the fixed price, pay an exorbitant excise tax, or stop participating in Medicare and Medicaid drug programs altogether.

"Of course, we know it's not that neat and tidy. The underlying problem with price-fixing is that it simply doesn't work.

"When the federal government pre-determines outcomes, it kills the incentives that prompt innovators to bet big on cutting-edge research and development.

"Artificially fixing the price for a life-saving cure doesn't make it cheaper - it makes it less likely to exist in the first place!

"By one estimate, over the next ten years the sort of prescription drug socialism the Biden Administration is driving at could snuff out development on nearly 140 new treatments before it begins.

"And needless to say, the people who stand to lose the most from state meddling in the market for medical treatments are the people who rely on them - American patients, especially seniors.

"There's a reason the United States leads the world in the pharmaceutical development. It's precisely because we encourage innovation and welcome risk-taking.

"And it's because, until now, we've kept Washington from pouring cold water on the most prolific engine of lifesaving cures in history."

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