Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called out big pharma and insurance companies for using tricks to unfairly squeeze taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries.
At a recent hearing of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth, Warren questioned witnesses about how corporate profiteering in the pharmaceutical, insurance, and financial industries is contributing to excessive costs for Medicare.
She said cracking down on corporate exploitation of the Medicare program could generate more than $900 billion over 10 years to help expand coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits or lower the Medicare eligibility age.
Warren called out the pharmaceutical industry’s role in using monopoly power to drive up costs for Medicare and squeeze billions in profits from the government.
From 1995 to 2015, the leading 60 pharmaceutical companies consolidated into just ten.
In industry after industry, greater consolidation stifles competition and leads to higher prices. But that’s not enough: drug companies have also abused the patent system and engaged in pay-for-delay schemes to prevent competitors from entering the marketplace.
“We see in industry after industry, research shows us that monopoly power leads to higher prices – and the pharmaceutical industry is just no exception to that. We should strengthen enforcement of our nation’s antitrust laws, we should crack down on anti-competitive behaviors that huge drug companies use routinely to keep their prices high, and we should save Medicare billions and billions of dollars as a result,” said Warren.
Warren also called for passage of the Build Back Better Act, which includes provisions that could generate an estimated $297 billion in savings, including by giving the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to negotiate prices on some high-price drugs.
“Medicare spends too much money on prescription drugs,” said Warren. “The program is barred from negotiating prices, which means that seniors and taxpayers pay way too much just to improve the profits of giant drug companies.”