WASHINGTON - Healthy Future Task Force co-chairs, Congressman Vern Buchanan (FL-16) and Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), and the Treatment Subcommittee announced the Task Force’s solutions to lower drug costs and supercharge the availability and development of life-saving cures and therapies.
At a roundtable with key stakeholders and patient advocates, the co-chairs and Treatment Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, D.P.M. (OH-02), Subcommittee Member John Joyce, M.D. (PA-13), and Subcommittee Member Bruce Westerman (AR-04) released proposals after months of extensive research and conversations with the American people on how to improve patients’ access to innovative treatments across our health care ecosystem. The Treatment Subcommittee also penned an op-ed in The Hill further outlining their key findings and proposed policy solutions.
“For too long, Democrats in Washington have taken a ‘Washington-knows-best’ approach to regulating our health care system. House Republicans are instead taking a bottom-up approach and listening to the American people to develop solutions on how to address pressing issues in our health care system. Thanks to Representatives Wenstrup, Joyce, and Westerman for your work on this task force’s proposals to lower drug costs, unleash innovative therapies and devices for patients, and promote American-made medicines. The Treatment Subcommittee’s findings are a key pillar to the Healthy Future Task Force’s mission of fixing our health care system for a healthier America,” said Buchanan and Guthrie.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy created the 17-member Healthy Future Task Force to develop solutions to modernize the American health care system to lower costs, keep Americans healthy, develop better therapies and cures, and provide Americans with more choices. The Treatment Subcommittee is one of five subcommittees part of The Healthy Future Task Force, which also includes the Security Subcommittee, Affordability Subcommittee, Doctor/Patient Relationship Subcommittee, and Modernization Subcommittee.
Overview of solutions
- Unleash New Innovative Medicines, Devices, Diagnostics for Patients: Patients can benefit most when they quickly access innovations without government interference. House Republicans want to get government bureaucrats out of the way of your health care.
- Promote American-Made Medicines: American patients seeking treatments and cures should no longer be held hostage by supply chain disruptions or foreign government restrictions. We need to promote American-made medicines
- Lower Drug Costs for Americans: American patients deserve, and will thrive with, lower out-of-pocket spending, access to new medicines and cures.
Click HERE for a more detailed one-pager.
Recap of Treatment Subcommittee Roundtable
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Healthy Future Task Force Co-Chairs and the Treatment Subcommittee members held a roundtable with Khrystal K. Davis, JD, Founding President, Texas Rare Alliance; Sue Peschin, President and CEO, Alliance for Aging Research; and Former Rep. Erik Paulsen, Chair, Institute for Gene Therapies. You can watch the full roundtable discussion HERE.
Rep. Vern Buchanan (FL-16), Co-Chair of the Healthy Future Task Force, “The Healthy Future Task Force is focused on developing policies that will offer more choices, lower costs, peace of mind, and hope by investing in developing new cures for life threatening diseases that destroy families.”
Rep. Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Co-Chair of the Healthy Future Task Force, "We are not only fighting to deliver lower drug costs, but we are also fighting to unleash inovation to deliver cures for these diseases."
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, D.P.M. (OH-02), Chair of the Treatment Subcommittee, “If you would have told me when I was serving in Iraq as a surgeon that my protective equipment and my pharmaceuticals relied on adversaries, in particular China, I mean, how did we get here? We’re starting to try to investigate all that and see where things are coming from. We’ve got to do what we can to bring things back to the United States of America”
Rep. John Joyce, M.D. (PA-13), Treatment Subcommittee Member, “Moving forward that individualized, personalized therapies are the cornerstone of American health care, and we have to be ready to be a part of that.”
Rep. Bruce Westerman (AR-04), Treatment Subcommittee Member, “We got to get to the root problems and make sure we’re promoting innovation, that we’re promoting fiscal accountability.”
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