Congressman Steven Horsford Passes Historic Drug Pricing Legislation to Lower Costs for Nevadans

Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, December 12, 2019, Congressman Steven Horsford (NV-04) voted to pass H.R. 3, the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act.

"This is a momentous day for families and patients all across America — for folks like myself, who rely on multiple, life-saving medications every day," Congressman Horsford said. "I voted for this legislation for the countless people who have stopped me at churches or community events to tell me how they've had to make the painful decisions between paying their rent and affording the life-saving medications they need to stay healthy. I voted today to once and for all put the health of Nevadans over the profits of pharmaceutical companies. I won't give up fighting until this legislation is passed and signed into law."

In Nevada's Fourth Congressional District, there are roughly 90,000 people enrolled in a Medicare Part D plan and nearly half a million people enrolled in private health insurance, all of whom stand to benefit from the passage of the Lower Drug Costs Now Act. With the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, House Democrats are taking bold action to level the playing field for American patients and taxpayers:

• It ends the ban on Medicare negotiating directly with the drug companies and creates powerful new tools to force drug companies to the table to agree to real price reductions while ensuring seniors never lose access to the prescriptions they need.
• H.R. 3 also makes the lower drug prices negotiated by Medicare available to all Americans, including those with private insurance, not just Medicare beneficiaries.
• This legislation stops drug companies ripping off Americans while charging other
  countries less for the same drugs, limiting the maximum price for any negotiated drug to be in line with the average price in countries like ours, where drug companies charge less for the same drugs – and admit they still make a profit.
• H.R. 3 creates a new, $2,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, and reverses years of unfair price hikes above inflation across more than 8,000 drugs in Medicare.
• With a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate that H.R. 3 would produce $345 billion in savings, this legislation also reinvests in innovation and the search for new cures and treatments, using some of the savings from lowering the unjustified drug prices that are bankrolling Big Pharma's stock-buybacks to reinvest billions of dollars in the search for new breakthrough treatments and cures at NIH.

Congressman Horsford had multiple provisions included in the larger H.R. 3 package, including:

• H.R. 4649, the Capping Drug Costs for Seniors Act, to create an out-of-pocket prescription drug cap at $2,000, saving American seniors thousands of dollars on life-saving medications.
• H.R. 4650, the Medicare Dental Act, which would allow Medicare beneficiaries to have access to dental coverage for most dental services such as preventive dental care, routine dental treatments, and dentures.
• H.R. 3342, the Health Providers Training Act, to address the nationwide shortage of healthcare professionals, by granting hospitals eligibility for the Health Profession Opportunity Grant Program to train Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients and low-income individuals for positions in the healthcare field expected to be in high demand or experience a labor shortage.
• H.R. 4768, the Home Visiting to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Act, to double funding for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program. This bill seeks to lessen the rate of deaths per 100,000 births in the United States, which has grown by 1.7 percent since 1987, at a time when mortality and morbidity rates fell in the rest of the world.

Constituent stories can be found here.

Nevada-specific fact sheet on H.R. 3 (NOT FOR PUBLICATION) benefits can be found here.