Waxman Continues Crusade Against Big Pharma’s Profit-Padding From New Perch As Lobbyist
The program California Democrat Henry Waxman is lobbying for allows hospitals that serve a large proportion of low-income patients to buy drugs from manufacturers at a discount of 20 percent to 50 percent. In other news, a look at why drug coupons are benefiting the industry.
The Washington Post:
Henry Waxman Isn’t Done Fighting With Drug Companies
Henry Waxman spent four decades in Congress relentlessly going after drug companies for what he charged was their profit-padding. The California Democrat left Capitol Hill in 2015, but he hasn’t given up battling big pharma. Waxman is now working as a lobbyist for hospitals and medical clinics to protect a drug discount program, known as 340B, that he helped create 24 years ago. He is urging federal regulators to resist calls by the drug industry’s leading trade group to put new restrictions on the program, which was designed to help hospitals better treat poor patients by requiring drug makers to offer medicines at a steep discount. (Ho, 10/12)