Bipartisan draft bill would pay hospitals more to combat drug shortages

The Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee re­leased a new bi­par­ti­san draft leg­is­la­tion on Fri­day morn­ing that would in­cen­tivize gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers and health­care providers, like hos­pi­tals and clin­ics, to mit­i­gate gener­ic drug short­ages by pri­or­i­tiz­ing drug qual­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.

“It is un­ac­cept­able that Amer­i­ca is con­sis­tent­ly run­ning out of af­ford­able and es­sen­tial gener­ic med­i­cines,” Com­mit­tee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a state­ment. He sin­gled out “mo­nop­o­lis­tic mid­dle­men that have put mar­ket pow­er and prof­it over fam­i­lies’ health care.”

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