A recent op-ed by Sally C. Pipes, president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute, referenced Joel White’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee. The op-ed titled, Let’s Hope Drug Companies Win Price Controls War, examines how the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) price controls represent an unprecedented intervention in the market for prescription drugs that is likely to carry serious negative consequences for patients. Pipes sited White’s testimony from earlier this month:
These price controls represent an unprecedented intervention in the market for prescription drugs that is likely to carry serious negative consequences for patients. But according to testimony delivered before the House Oversight Committee by Joel White, president of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, the program also sets a dangerous precedent for how laws get implemented.
Normally, federal officials would give citizens a chance to voice concerns about a policy shift of this magnitude — and would need to address that feedback in the final policy. But the IRA’s drug pricing provisions sidestep this process altogether by requiring the rule be implemented by “program instruction or other forms of program guidance” — a sub-regulatory process in which the public gets little say.
White goes on to note that countless decisions about drug pricing — including which drugs get included in the program, as well as the prices themselves — are exempt from administrative and judicial review.