Recent reports describe a proposal known as “binding arbitration” as a would-be middle ground, a possible compromise between Congress and the Trump administration on addressing prescription drug costs.
But as a Democrat who supported the Affordable Care Act and worked on many bipartisan measures while representing the state of Arkansas, I feel qualified to say: binding arbitration for drug pricing is far from “moderate,” but instead a form of price setting that could do significant harm to the quality of care Americans receive.
In binding arbitration, the government convenes a panel that decides what the price of a drug should be, and drug makers are required to sell at that price going forward. The unelected panel would have full discretion to set prices that they deem are reasonable with no accountability to the American people, including millions of patients seeking access to treatments that would be put at risk by this pricing mechanism.
