Recently, Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, joined twenty-one other attorneys general in submitting an amicus brief in the case of Pharmaceutical Res. & Manufacturers of Am. v. Stolfi, which advocates for legislation that would enhance medication price transparency.
This amicus brief was submitted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Oregon in favor of House Bill 4005. This legislation aims to compel pharmaceutical companies to provide particular details regarding particular new prescription pharmaceuticals as well as past pricing data for existing drugs. An same statute from 2017 in California, Senate Bill 17, is comparable to House Bill 4005 in Oregon.
Bonta stated, “The need for state-level action to protect residents from predatory pricing practices has never been more urgent” due to the continuous increase in prescription medicine prices nationwide. That is why I am spearheading a coalition of states’ attorneys general throughout the country in support of Oregon’s legislation mandating medication price transparency.
Increased costs for prescription drugs put people out of reach financially, which in turn can exacerbate preexisting diseases, reduce health outcomes, and even cause death. As a nation, we have the power to build a healthcare system that puts the health of its citizens ahead of profits for pharmaceutical companies.
To help bring down the exorbitant cost of prescription pharmaceuticals for Oregonians, House Bill 4005 was passed in 2018 with the goals of making drug pricing more transparent, making pharmaceutical firms answerable for price increases, and assisting in cost control efforts.
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An organization that speaks for some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in America, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) has challenged the validity of House Bill 4005 in a federal district court case that was filed in Oregon. Following a partial district court ruling in favor of PhRMA, Oregon filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit.
Senate Bill 17, a comparable measure in California, seeks to safeguard customers from catastrophic rises in the cost of pharmaceutical medications. Substantially, when the list price of a drug increases, SB 17 mandates that the maker disclose certain details. By analyzing data collected under SB 17, the California Department of Managed Health Care determines how much of an effect prescription drug prices have on health insurance premiums.
This statute has been used in enforcement actions by both the California state authorities and the Department of Justice. Measures such as House Bill 4005 in Oregon and Senate Bill 17 in California enable states to gather and evaluate pertinent data to find solutions to limit the costs of medications that are vital to the health of their inhabitants, and they also hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the rise in the price of prescription drugs.
Roughly one-third of American adults (or 34 million people) have personal experience with someone who did not receive necessary medical treatment due to financial constraints; this number is based on a 2019 Gallup-West Health National Healthcare Study.
The coalition contends in the amicus brief that state legislation, such as Oregon’s, is necessary to protect state interests because of the negative effects that the recent sharp rises in medicine prices have had on states and their citizens.
Laws encouraging medication price transparency are among the many actions that a bipartisan coalition of states has taken to ensure that pharmaceutical companies are held responsible, as the amicus brief again emphasizes. In addition, the brief stresses the significance of data-collecting laws to assist shed light on drug spending and drive legislative solutions to tackle exorbitant medication costs.
Along with Attorney General Bonta, the following states’ attorneys general joined in filing the amicus brief: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.