Freedom Line Blog

Senator Martha McSally (R – Arizona) has broadly proven herself a stalwart ally of conservatives, libertarians and the Trump Administration in her brief tenure on Capitol Hill.  A former U.S. Air Force A-10 pilot, her votes have confirmed President Trump’s phenomenal array of judicial nominees and advanced his economic agenda to bring us arguably the greatest economic conditions in history.

She must be careful, however, to avoid potentially catastrophic missteps on the issue of healthcare and prescription drugs.

Specifically, Sen. McSally has introduced legislation and supported other Senate Finance Committee proposals that would introduce drug price controls from socialist foreign healthcare systems to the U.S., empower the Department of Health and Human  Services (HHS) to directly and bureaucratically negotiate pharmaceutical prices, allow importation of potentially dangerous drugs from foreign countries and introduce components that would erode our world-leading patent system.

It’s not by accident that the U.S. accounts for over two-thirds of all new lifesaving and life-improving pharmaceuticals introduced to the world – it’s the direct result of our strong patent protections here, and our more market-oriented approach.  In contrast, foreign nations that have introduced the principles contained in some of Sen. McSally’s legislation and bills that she supports inevitably suffer shortages, as even the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged:

Every time one country demands a lower price, it leads to lower price reference used by other countries.  Such price controls, combined with the threat of market lockout or intellectual property infringement, prevent drug companies from charging market rates for their products, while delaying the availability of new cures to patients living in countries implementing those policies.

Of all new cancer drugs developed worldwide between 2011 and 2018, 96% were available to American consumers. Meanwhile, only 56% of those drugs became available in the Canda, 50% in Japan and just 11% in Greece, as just three examples. Patients in nations imposing drug price controls simply don’t receive access to new pharmaceuticals as quickly as Americans, if they ever receive them at all.

Senator McSally mustn’t sacrifice her conservative principles on behalf of prescription drug legislation that will make matters worse for American consumers, not better.  She should withdraw her proposed bill and renounce the Senate Finance Committee’s proposal, and instead support more market-based solutions that have proven effective not only with pharmaceuticals, but across all economic realms.