ICYMI: House Budget Committee Health Care Task Force Makes Waves with Roundtable Discussion
The House Budget Committee Health Care Task Force (HCTF) held an important roundtable discussion this week where Task Force Members, led by HCTF Chairman Michael Burgess M.D. (R-TX), evaluated how the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzes the impact of federal price controls on medical innovation. Many experts at the session raised serious concerns about CBO’s conclusions and warned that price controls contained in the Inflation Reduction Act would drastically slow the development of and access to new treatments and cures for patients.
Word on the Street:
Via Axios:
- “The House Budget Committee's health care task force is ramping up its efforts to examine how health care spending is affecting the budget.”
- “Driving the news: On Thursday, Rep. Michael Burgess hosted the first of the health care task force meetings, which was focused on discussing the Inflation Reduction Act's drug pricing provisions.”
- “Health task force members met with current Congressional Budget Office director Phillip Swagel, former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin, and other experts to discuss and understand how CBO determined how drug development would be affected by the IRA.”
- “What they're saying: Burgess told reporters after the meeting that the goal wasn't necessarily to challenge what CBO has put out, but to understand the data and how they come to the conclusions that they do…He also suggested that the next steps for the health care task force could include looking specifically at site-neutral policies, which were mentioned in the House Budget Committee's 2024 budget resolution.”
Via Politico:
- "HOUSE BUDGET GOP CHATS IRA WITH CBO - Republicans on the House Budget Committee’s health care task force met with the Congressional Budget Office, an economist and an investor Thursday to discuss the office’s estimates of the impact the Inflation Reduction Act will have on future drug development.”
- “The takeaway? Republicans acknowledge there is no short-term legislative path to claw back or tweak the parameters of Medicare price negotiations, but they want a better understanding of how the nonpartisan office estimates the long-term effects of health care policy.”
- “We as members of Congress need to be better at discerning when we get a CBO report,’ Burgess said. ‘What is nice to know, and what is the real impact?”
- “In July 2022, CBO estimated the law would prevent 15 in 1,300 drugs from coming to market over the next 30 years.”
The Bottom Line:
This week’s HCTF roundtable marks the first of many informative panels to better examine the growing impact of health spending in the federal budget. Medical innovation, including new and better medicines, have the potential to reduce federal health spending, as CBO noted earlier this year. Policies that delay patient access to new medicines or lead to fewer medicines reaching the U.S. market will ultimately have a direct impact on federal health care spending.
House Budget Republicans on the Health Care Task Force are working toward a future that both expands access to quality health care and reins in reckless government spending. That future is only possible through discussions like the roundtable the HCTF held this week, and the entire Budget Committee looks forward to adding even more seats at the table to strive toward a new frontier of health care in America.
