Drug affordability legislation gets second pass through Michigan Senate

For the second time, Michigan Senate Democrats have pushed forward legislation they say will bring to heel “skyrocketing” prescription drug costs in the state.

On Thursday, the state Senate passed bills that would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, or PDAB, which would have the authority to set upper payment limits on drugs sold in Michigan. 

“This board is a simple concept and a great idea,” Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Brownstown Township), sponsor of one of the bills, said. “It allows for a public body of officials appointed by the governor, including folks who have no connection to the pharmaceutical industry whatsoever, who would then review some of these exorbitant price increases that we see from some companies as they are attempting to gouge the American consumer. They will hold them accountable. 
It will be a public and transparent process, and they will find ways to lower those costs for our residents.”

Republican opposition, however, centered on concerns of replacing a free market system with a “government-controlled collectivist system,” as Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) referred to it.

“Why do we have such a disproportionate amount of innovation and pharmaceuticals in the United States of America as opposed to the rest of the globe?” he asked. “It’s because the producers are free to innovate and they are free to have the market regulate the supply and the demand of the product. If you eliminate that, there’s no incentive for innovation or entrepreneurship. 
It goes away. The competition is destroyed. This does not benefit people. 
This hurts people.”

The package, consisting of Senate Bills 3, 4 and 5, passed with a bare majority of 20 votes, with Sen. John DaMoose (R-Harbor Springs) the lone Republican to join the 19 Democrats in approval. The legislation now moves to the GOP-controlled House, where its future is less assured.

This is the second time Democrats have passed the bills through the Senate, with the upper chamber previously approving the legislation in October 2023, only to see it ultimately die without a vote in the House Insurance and Financial Services Committee. At the time, the House was controlled by Democrats, but with Republicans now in the majority there, passage will be even more difficult. 

One ray of hope for supporters came from Damoose, who voted against the plan when it originally passed, but on Thursday said further investigation produced a change of heart on his part.

“Last term I was persuaded by the idea that the market should determine the cost of drugs,” Damoose said. “But the more I learned, the more apparent it became that calling the prescription drug market a free market is a total farce. 
We are so far from being a free market when it comes to pharmaceuticals, it’s unbelievable.”

Damoose noted the hundreds of billions of dollars invested by the federal government in developing many of the most popular and useful drugs, and yet U.S. taxpayers in many cases did not have affordable access to those drugs. 

“It’s unconscionable in my mind that those within the nation that supported the development of production of the most incredible body of medical advancement the world has ever seen would pay more than anyone else to access the benefits of those very prescription drugs,” Damoose said. 

The pharmaceutical industry, however, sees the situation differently, with trade group PhRMA saying the proposed board would have “long-term, harmful effects” on both the development of livesaving drugs and patients’ ability to access them.  

“Prescription Drug Affordability Boards are a disaster for patients,” said Stami Turk, director of public affairs at PhRMA. “These bills put the government between patients and their doctors. Patients deserve access to the medicine their doctors prescribe – not roadblocks from Lansing. The House has the chance to do the right thing and to get the government out from in between patients and their physicians.”

Doctors, meanwhile, have welcomed the proposal, with support from the Michigan State Medical Society and the Committee to Protect Health Care. 

Dr. Rob Davidson, is an emergency room physician in west Michigan and executive director of the committee.

“Doctors are encouraged to see this legislation to help our patients better afford their prescription drugs, and to help finally hold Big Pharma accountable, move forward in the legislative process,” Davidson said. “We look forward to swift passage of these bills in both the Senate and House in Michigan so that our patients here can also benefit from upper payment limits and be able to take their medications as doctors like us prescribe.”