SUNUNU SENATE FLOOR REMARKS REGARDING
“PHARMACEUTICAL ADVERTISING AND PRUDENT PURCHASING ACT”
WASHINGTON, DC – United States Senator John Sununu (R-NH)
delivered the following remarks regarding the “Pharmaceutical
Advertising and Prudent Purchasing Act” (S. 1128) on the floor
of the United States Senate on May 26, 2005. The legislation, which
he introduced with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), aims to reduce taxpayers’
costs for commonly advertised prescription drugs purchased by Medicaid,
Medicare, and other federal programs.
“I am pleased to join Senator Wyden in the introduction of
this legislation, which is a good-faith effort to try to find that
fresh approach Senator Wyden talked about, a fresh approach to deal
with costs in health care, specifically in those areas where the
federal government is directly purchasing pharmaceuticals: in the
VA, where we have a very large direct purchase program that exists
today, and within Medicaid, where both the federal government and
the states are directly involved in purchasing and negotiating the
pricing of drugs.
“We are focusing on direct-to-consumer advertising. This is
an area where activity and cost have exploded over the last 6 or
7 years. Since 1997, when the federal government changed the regulations
associated with direct-to-consumer advertising, we have seen advertising
outlays for pharmaceuticals go from a little bit over $1 billion
to nearly $5 billion per year this year. Those costs, as any costs
would be, are passed on to consumers. In the case of these programs
where the federal government is purchasing the pharmaceuticals in
the VA and in Medicaid, that means that the cost, the impact, is
disproportionately felt by the taxpayer.
“This is an effort to try to find a way to reduce those costs,
to give the federal government the power to make a distinction,
as they negotiate prices – to make a distinction between those
drugs that are advertised directly to consumers or marketed directly
to consumers and those that are not, and to provide discounts to
those companies or those drugs that avoid the additional costs of
advertising.
“This advertising, as I say, is expensive. The cost is passed
on to taxpayers in these particular programs. I think there are
also a lot of questions about the value that a flood of advertising
might provide.
“We have all been inundated by different types of advertisements,
on TV or in magazines. It is costly, as I mentioned, but it also
carries with it some risk of over-utilization; of, in some cases,
encouraging or leading consumers to believe that they need or would
benefit by a particular medicine when it is not necessarily the
best approach for them.
“In some cases it is clear this advertising has been used
to drive consumers away from lower priced generic drugs. I think
this is one of the most problematic areas, and that has been seen
and discussed at some length in the states, in their Medicaid programs.
“This legislation presents an opportunity to get our hands
around the cost issue, to fund some important studies, to take a
closer look at questions of over-utilization and the substitution
I described. It represents a good start, I think, opening the debate
with this discussion about dealing directly with health care costs
in areas of the federal government as the principal purchaser.
“There may be other options. In fact, Senator Wyden and I
talked about a few other approaches that are not included in this
legislation. I think I can speak for the Senator from Oregon when
I say we look forward to talking to our colleagues about other ideas
that might be out there. We look forward to sharing ideas and information
with producers themselves who, I hope, are willing to look at ways
to help save the consumers money, help save taxpayers money, and
help deal with direct-to-consumer advertising in a more responsible
way.
“We are going to do a Medicaid bill this year in the Senate.
While we also deal with some issues at HHS and the VA in this bill,
certainly the costs associated with Medicaid and our recommendations
with regard to Medicaid are a central part of the bill. I will work
with Senator Wyden and any of my interested colleagues to try to
include and capture some of these ideas in Medicaid legislation
this year.
“It is a great opportunity to look at the issue of health
costs and drug costs in a fresh way, in a different way. I very
much appreciate the work Senator Wyden has done in helping to craft
this legislation and his willingness to lend his strong support,
as a longstanding and more senior Member than I, as a member of
the Senate Finance Committee, and as a Member of the Senate on the
other side of the aisle.”
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