Portrait of Bernie Sanders
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Bernie Sanders on Drug Prices

Price control advocate (strong)

TL;DR

Bernie Sanders strongly advocates for drastically lowering prescription drug prices through government negotiation and importation.

Key Points

  • He released a report in 2019 detailing how nearly 700 prescription drugs had increased in price under the Trump administration.

  • Sanders has pushed for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to use its funding leverage to rein in drug prices, such as by ensuring lower prices for taxpayer-funded research discoveries, as noted in late 2023.

  • He has expressed support for allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, a power he argues should extend across the entire drug market.

Summary

Bernie Sanders maintains a consistent and forceful position opposing the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States, frequently citing the exorbitant prices charged by pharmaceutical companies. His core stance involves empowering the federal government to negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers, a power he asserts is necessary to bring costs down for patients and taxpayers. He has also frequently highlighted reports detailing significant price increases on common medications, even under administrations that promised relief, while calling for increased funding for federally supported medical research to be leveraged against price gouging.

He views the current system as fundamentally broken, benefiting corporate executives while burdening families, seniors, and the Medicare system with unsustainable costs. The Senator has supported measures to allow the importation of less expensive prescription drugs from Canada, asserting that Americans should not have to pay significantly more than citizens of other developed nations for the same medications. Furthermore, he has connected the issue to the need for greater transparency in the research and development process, suggesting that taxpayer-funded research should not result in unaffordable drugs for the public.

Key Quotes

“Trump promised to defeat childhood cancer. Trump promised to end chronic disease. Trump promised to lower prescription drug prices. He has done none of these things,” Sanders said. “Instead, Trump has terminated hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and heart disease research. He has abandoned patients in clinical trials. And he has done nothing to lower the outrageous prices Americans pay for the drugs their own tax dollars helped create.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Bernie Sanders strongly opposes the high prices charged for prescription drugs by pharmaceutical companies in the United States. He advocates for fundamental systemic change to lower these costs for American consumers.

The Senator has consistently called for empowering the federal government to directly negotiate drug prices, a measure he argues is common practice in other countries. He also supports allowing the importation of lower-cost medications from Canada.

Yes, Bernie Sanders continues to actively address drug prices, frequently releasing reports detailing price hikes and calling on pharmaceutical executives to justify their high profits. He maintains pressure on federal agencies regarding pricing oversight.