Azar: I Have a Shocking Amount of Power, Intend to Use It
“The secretary of HHS has a shocking amount of power by the stroke of a pen, and we intend to exercise it,” HHS secretary Alex Azar told PBS News Hour 5/14, addressing the cost of prescription drugs paid by Medicare for senior citizens − an issue FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has committed the agency to address through its drug approval policies and authorities. A former Eli Lilly president, Azar was being questioned by PBS News Hour anchor Judy Woodruff about reports that the Trump Administration intends to press industry to post prices in its direct-to-consumer advertisements.
“Well,” responded Azar, “we fundamentally believe that, as a citizen, when you're watching a TV ad that is trying to entice you to go to your doctor's office and ask that doctor for a drug, that you are owed as part of a fair balance information, to know how much the drug costs. What are they trying to get for that drug? I think it's material to know if the drug that you're being pitched is a $100 drug or a $50,000 drug. God help you if a senior citizen watches an ad and pays for a doctor's appointment to find out that it's a $50,000, unaffordable drug that he or she couldn't get. I just think that's fair information they ought to have.”
A skeptical Woodruff wondered how many companies would do this voluntarily. Azar responded: “Well, we're going to get there one way or the other, so I hope they will get there now.”
Woodruff then turned to lowering out-of-pocket drug expenses, another promise of the Trump plan. “So many people pay so much out of pocket for their medicines,” Azar said, “especially as we now have these higher-deductible health care plans and as insurance companies have pushed more of the cost burden on to us. … We have actually asked for Congress to put a cap on the amount of out of pocket a senior would ever have to pay during a year. … We have asked for low-income senior citizens to pay nothing for generic drugs out of pocket. And we have already changed how we reimburse our drugs for those physician-administered infusion drugs. We have changed the reimbursement that pulls down the out-of-pocket for seniors by $320 million a year already.”
When Woodruff asked if all this required congressional approval, Azar responded: “Very little of it does. Some of those changes to benefit design it just mentioned would require congressional approval. But the vast, vast majority of what we're doing, I have the power to implement. The secretary of HHS has a shocking amount of power by the stroke of a pen. And we intend to exercise it.”