Co-hosted by the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy and the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy
The high cost of prescription drugs has become an increasingly pressing concern for policymakers, insurers, and families. New drugs—like those now available for hepatitis C— offer tremendous medical benefits, but at a cost that puts them out of reach for many patients. In an effort to address the affordability dilemma, the Louisiana Department of Health has recently introduced a novel “subscription” model under which Asegua Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Gilead Sciences, will supply, for a negotiated sum, enough hepatitis C drugs to cure virtually all incarcerated and Medicaid patients suffering from hepatitis C in Louisiana over the next five years.
On Monday, July 22, the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy and the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy will co-hosted a discussion of the Louisiana experiment as well as other novel approaches to increasing prescription drug affordability. Featured speakers included Louisiana Secretary of Health Rebekah Gee and Wendell Primus, senior advisor to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whose office is currently working on legislation to lower prescription drug prices.
Join the conversation on Twitter using #DrugPricing
Watch the entire event below:
- Event Date
- Monday, July 22, 2019
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM Eastern - Location
- Brookings Institution
Falk Auditorium
1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
- Louise Sheiner, The Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow - Economic Studies; Policy Director, The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy
- Neeraj Sood, Professor, Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and Vice Dean for Research, USC Price School of Public Policy and USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics
- Moderated by Louise Sheiner
- Rebekah Gee, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health
- Moderated by Matthew Fiedler, Fellow - Economic Studies, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy
- Rene Conti, Associate Professor - Markets, Public Policy, and Law, Questrom School of Business at Boston University
- Rebekah Gee
- Rekha Ramesh, Executive Director - Public Policy, Gilead Science, Inc.
- Neeraj Sood
- Moderated by David Wessel, Director, The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Senior Fellow - Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution
- Wendell Primus, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)