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Subcommittee of House Energy and Commerce Committee Advances Two Schakowsky Bills

July 11, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Senior Chief Deputy Whip and Chairwoman of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, released the following statement following the Health Subcommittee’s mark-up today that included two bills she introduced:

“I am proud that my Energy and Commerce colleagues on the health subcommittee voted to unanimously advance my FAIR Drug Pricing Act (H.R. 2296), introduced with Representative Francis Rooney, and my EMPOWER for Health Act (H.R. 2781), introduced with Representative Michael Burgess, to the full committee for consideration. These robust, bipartisan bills are essential to achieve transparency around prescription drug pricing and to increase the strength, skill, and diversity of our health care workforce.

“The FAIR Drug Pricing Act will for the first time give taxpayers public notice of price increases and bring basic transparency to the market for prescription drugs. Profiteering drug corporations will finally have to answer to the American people. The health subcommittee also approved an amendment to the bill that includes additional measures to increase transparency around the rebates and merger activity of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), to require that insurers give real-time drug price information to seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, and to force drug companies to report more information to the Department of Health and Human Services about their average sales prices and the samples they provide.

“The EMPOWER for Health Act is equally as critical to the American people. The bill will finally reauthorize essential Title VII funding to increase access to providers in underserved areas and ensure a more diverse health care workforce able to meet the needs of our entire population. If health care access were equitable across race, health insurance coverage, and geographic location, we would require almost 100,000 more physicians today. That is unacceptable for our growing, aging population, for children, and for all vulnerable communities. I am proud we are finally taking action.

“I look forward to speaking more about both of these bills and voting for them during the full Committee markup before the end of this month.“

Issues:Health