Bobby Scott: “There's a provision in the prescriptive drug benefit that passed about a decade ago that prohibits HHS from negotiating…”

“There's a provision in the prescriptive drug benefit that passed about a decade ago that prohibits HHS from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceuticals. Now, the VA can negotiate prices; Medicaid can negotiate prices. But somehow, somebody, I don't know who, nobody's taking credit for it, it just kind of ended up in there, prohibits HHS from negotiating drug prices. So when a company says this is what we want, it is illegal for HHS to point out that you're charging everybody less, you charge in Canada less--how about giving us a little savings--that's illegal. Whatever they want, that's what they get.”