‘It shows how much pharma has on their plate’: Congress just quietly passed a bill that will cost drug makers $3 billion

WASHINGTON — It’s on the lips of every presidential candidate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even President Trump: It’s time to lower drug prices. And yet when Congress passed a drug pricing bill last week that will save the government $3 billion — the first it’s passed in nearly a year — no one really noticed.

You can’t blame them: There was no press conference from the bill sponsors, no snarky reaction from the drug industry, virtually no press release from any of the advocacy organizations that champ at the bit to weigh in on every twist and turn of the ongoing drug pricing debate in Washington. Even Trump, who has been eager to show his progress on lowering the costs of drugs, didn’t hold a signing ceremony for the bill.

The policy isn’t scintillating; it’s a wonky change to the way drug makers calculate discounts for states on certain drugs in the Medicaid program. It was quietly tacked onto a sweeping funding package that keeps the government open until late November. And at the end of the day, it’ll help state and federal budgets much more than it will lower actual patient costs.

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