North Dakota’s Democratic candidate for US Senate says she was taken aback by an AXIOS report that claims Republicans in Washington, DC are looking to repeal the Medicare drug price negotiation provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The legislation allows for negotiation of drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, resulting in cheaper drug prices for seniors on fixed incomes.
Katrina Christiansen says during her campaign, she has yet to meet any voters who approve of increasing the costs of prescription drugs. One constituent sticks out to her, specifically.
"I have the name of a gentleman on a little piece of paper, he gave it to me. He wrote out, '90 day supply.' His entero went from $90 to $475, and eliquis went $70 to $473. So I'm pretty sure that that's like, a $400 increase per drug for him - so that's $800 for a 90 day supply."
Christiansen says from what she can tell, these lawmakers are set to repeal the legislation, but have yet to present any plan to replace it with another solution. She says she believes drug prices can remain low without harming a pharmaceutical company’s ability to innovate.
"When we hear politicians talk about these kinds of things and they do the fearmongering, it's because they don't share the data when they're doing the fearmongering. And one of the things that I - I'm an engineer - do the research, figure out what the real story is here, and the reality is we can save tax payers $100 million, we can help reduce the 60 or 90 day supply drug price for our seniors, and we can do so without affecting R&D for our drug companies. That's the real story."
Christiansen is challenging Republican incumbent Kevin Cramer for the Senate seat.