Joni Inman, Executive Director
Inman is an experienced business consultant who has worked with small to mid-size businesses, helping clients engage in public policy discussions ranging from healthcare, telecommunications, and energy.
TESTIMONY SUBMITTED BY JENNIFER CHURCHIELD, HB23-1225
MARCH 9, 2023
Dear (Chair) and Members of the Health & Insurance Committee
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this written testimony to the House Health & Insurance Committee on HB23-1225, the PDAB Modernization Bill.
In 2021, I was one of dozens of everyday Coloradans, doctors, hospitals, medical providers and other stakeholders to testify in opposition to the original PDAB bill, SB21-175.
The concerns raised then about embarking on an ill-advised and unproven program where the state controls the price of prescription medicines lasted well into the night. Questions were never answered on how the state would ensure that patients in Colorado would receive real, tangible savings on prescription drugs, how the state would guarantee that patient access to life-saving medicines would not be compromised, and how the PDAB law would not put our health providers in the horrific vice of having either to deny patients the drugs they need or violate the law.
Twenty months and over $1.6 million in taxpayer dollars, these questions remain. The PDAB has not even brought up a single prescription drug for consideration of the upper payment limit (UPL), the supposed silver bullet for how costs will be lowered. Instead of producing real results for struggling Colorado drug consumers, the state had to go back for an additional $260,000 on top of the original appropriation.
Inexplicably, we are now looking at the introduction of HB23-1225 as a massive expansion of the PDAB program and reach. The bill removes the two key guardrails put in Sb-175 that legislators agreed to as a pledge to help ensure that, if nothing else, the potential damage of the PDAB program can be mitigated. Instead, HB23-1225 gives PDAB “carte blanche” to set a UPL for any drug they choose, as opposed to the twelve drug limit and doubles the sunset period from five to ten years.
We should be going in the opposite direction. Before taking any more action or gaining more control, the state legislature and the executive branch should be requiring that the PDAB board answer questions about the cost/benefit being promised to Colorado patients:
- What level of savings can patients expect to see from implementation of PDAB policies and when can they expect to see them? Will patients see any reduction in their out-of-pocket costs?
- How do Colorado patients and their families get assurance that the backward logic of the UPL does not result in patients being denied access to hundreds of medications because providers won’t be allowed to access the drugs or face legal action if they do?
- What alternatives will be available to patients if a needed medication is denied to them?
- To what extent would PDAB exacerbate the already growing health inequities between high and low-income patients when those with means can travel outside Colorado for a drug not available under the UPL, and those without means will have a harder time doing so?
- How can the state legislature, research staff, and HCPF leadership possibly justify the notion that no additional fiscal support will be required for a DOUBLING of PDAB’s sunset term, when the current spend rate for the program is $81,000 a month. Will the four, full-time state employees now assigned to PDAB go away? Will the board not spend a penny during the course of its five-year extension?
Unfortunately for Colorado patients, families and taxpayers, these questions only begin to tackle the looming risks and costs posed by the PDAB concept. Add to those the fundamental violation of our free market system that having a government price-setting board represents, and the chance of a nightmare scenario facing the state’s patients and taxpayers becomes all too real.
I urge the state legislature to vote no on HB23-1225 and instead conduct a rigorous review of the hazards and harms PDAB may pose to Coloradans and address ways to ensure patients already struggling under high healthcare costs aren’t faced with further suffering.
Thank you,
Jennifer Churchfield
Fight Policies That Endanger Access to Life Saving Medicines
FIGHTING POLICIES THAT ENDANGER ACCESS TO Life-Saving MEDICINES
Those Most Vulnerable May Suffer the Most
Groups representing the disabled, LGBTQ, people of color, the underserved and Colorado’s seniors are speaking out in concern with SB175, especially the proposal that would let state politicians control prices and access to life-saving drugs.
Colorado small business owners and bioscience researchers are seriously worried about the impacts the bill will have on Colorado’s role as a leading medical research center. And they are equally concerned about the gross interference in how life-saving medicines are priced and by extension how research happens.
Coloradans From All Walks of Life Speaking Out
This is just a partial list of the organizations speaking out against SB175’s provision to let state politicians control the cost and access to prescription drugs:
Colorado Society of Pharmacists
Colorado Retail Council
Colorado Gerontological Society
HIV+HEPC
Adams County Regional Economic Partnership
The Citizens Council for Health Freedom
Colorado Sickle Cell Association
Colorado Council of Black Nurses
Front Range Pharmalogic
West Slope Pharmalogic
Jefferson County Economic Development Corporation
Club 20
Westminster Chamber
Envision: You (an organization that supports, educates and empowers members of Colorado’s LGBTQ + (mental health and well-being for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning community)
You can read the specific concerns of many of these groups here:
The impact of Coloradans speaking against compromising care and treatment is being felt across our state.
These are a sample of recently published articles in newspapers throughout Colorado of people voicing concerns about not being able to access today’s life-saving medicines or seeing tomorrow’s cures be stopped in their tracks.
The impacts of Senate Bill 175 on our care are real. But so is the impact of us speaking out. Together we can stop SB175 from becoming law and cutting off our access to hures.
Mark Spiecker, STAQ Pharma: A state prescription drug board will backfire
Emily Zadvorny, Colorado Pharmacists Society: A state Prescription Drug Affordability board puts pharmacies, access to medication at risk
Jennifer Churchfield, Front Range PharmaLogic: State drug price limits would not drive down prescription prices
Rep. David Soper: Colorado Should Reject European-style price-setting board
Joni Inman, Front Range PharmaLogic: A prescription-drug price-control bill is the wrong answer for Colorado
Additional Resources
Opposition Testimony: CO SB 21-175 to establish a Prescription Drug Affordability Review Board
Senate Health and Human Services Committee, March 17, 2021
SB 21-175: Provider Testimony, Senate Health and Human Services Committee
Dr. Miller Head of Rocky Mountain Oncology Society, Chief Medical Director of Oncology; Associate Chief Medical Director of Clinical Research, SCL Health Cancer Center of Colorado
Governor and Legislature Drug Pricing Bill Harms Patients
“Prescription Drug Affordability (Price Control) Board” Means More Bureaucracy – Not Cheaper or more Accessible Medications for Patients
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