A bipartisan Senate health committee held the first of three hearings on the rising costs of prescription drugs but didn’t get very far. In many ways it became a gripe session for Democrats over their Republican counterparts’ closed-door session and secret meetings about their healthcare reform replacement bill.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing was supposed to focus on the path an FDA-approved prescription drug takes from the manufacturer to patient, and how this path affects what the patient pays. Subsequent hearings aim to look at the entire prescription drug process and patient access to affordable drugs.
