United States President, Joe Biden on Thursday charged Congress to pass a bill that would focus on reducing drug prices.
Gatekeepers News reports that the President wants Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers and penalize drugmakers that increase prices faster than inflation.
A report by Reuters showed that drugmakers inflated prices on more than 500 drugs in 2021.
Biden kicked against price increases for insulin to treat diabetes and common medicines for multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
“Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer — they don’t care if you’re Democrat or Republican,” Biden said, noting that “this is about whether or not you and your loved ones can afford prescription drugs.”
On the development of vaccines, Biden said: “We can make a distinction between developing these breakthroughs and jacking up prices on a range of medications for a range of everyday diseases and conditions.”
The U.S President narrated the story of a woman he had met whose insulin cost $32 a vial in 2001, saying that the same vial now costs $280.
Gatekeepers News reports that he reiterated his support for enabling the importation of drugs from Canada, where they tend to be sold at lower prices.
“All of us, whatever our background or our age and where we live, can agree that prescription drug prices are outrageously expensive in America,” Biden said, adding, “Right now, right here in America, we pay the highest prescription drug costs of any developed nation in the world…about two to three times what other countries pay.”
