Pelosi’s Drug Pricing Plan Could Face Constitutional Challenges: Report
Health Care

Pelosi’s Drug Pricing Plan Could Face Constitutional Challenges: Report

ERIN SCOTT

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to lower drug prices might violate three parts of the Constitution, according to an October 21 Congressional Research Service report obtained by STAT.

The report does not say that the bill — which would let the government negotiate prices with drug manufacturers and impose steep fines on companies that don’t comply — is unconstitutional, only that it could face challenges based on the Fifth and Eighth Amendments as well as the congressional power of taxation.

“The bad news for Democrats is that the potential constitutional issues with the bill can’t be fixed with a few tweaks — they relate to the central crux of the bill,” STAT’s Nicholas Florko writes.

Congressional committee spokespeople expressed confidence to STAT that the bill is constitutional.

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