Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Make Big Pharma's Greedheads Squirm

[Uncle Joe]

Senator Bernie Sanders speaks to reporters at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 25.

Since taking the helm of the committee that oversees the nation’s health care system last year, Senator Bernie Sanders has used his perch to take aim at pharmaceutical executives over the cost of prescription drugs. Next week, the CEOs of drug manufacturers Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb will appear before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to testify at a hearing concerned with the high prices of prescription medication in the United States as compared to other countries. The executives agreed to appear voluntarily last week after Sanders threatened to hold a vote to subpoena them.

In 2023, the CEOs of companies such as Moderna and Eli Lilly appeared before the committee for a round of inquisition and castigation over the cost of medications and vaccines—a line of questioning not typically embraced by the panel’s Republican members. Still, those occasionally combative hearings have produced results: Last year, the head of Eli Lilly pledged that his company would not raise prices on insulin products, although the other two pharmaceutical executives present did not. But not every firm came away from those sessions cowed: Johnson & Johnson accused Sanders of retaliating against the company for their lawsuit against the Biden administration over a program that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

In an interview on Thursday, Sanders discussed his plans for next week’s tête-à-tête with the pharma CEOs, as well as his broader vision for the HELP Committee. He also spoke about how Democrats should be approaching issues such as prescription drug costs in the upcoming elections. This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson initially said they would not testify and then abruptly switched course. Do you think this is due to the subpoena threat that you made?

Yes. Look, everything being equal, the major drug companies want to hide from the American people the American greed which they are exercising right now, which results in us paying the highest prices worldwide of prescription drugs. So the less that they are in the public eye, the better it is for them. Two out of the three denied our request to come voluntarily. The majority of the members of the committee were prepared to vote for a subpoena. They changed their mind, and I’m glad they’re going to be there.

(snip)

https://newrepublic.com/article/178663/bernie-sanders-pharma-ceos-pricing

[Silent Type]

1. Other countries negotiate drug prices and are willing to say No, we do but not much.