Marco Rubio’s co-sponsoring legislation to roll back prescription drug price controls

A last-minute surge, and Marco Rubio takes the lead.

In anticipation of Midterm Election results, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has filed for a do-over of the legislation widely expected to reduce out-of-pocket drug costs for patients and lower Medicare costs.

Rubio has joined with fellow Republican U.S. Sens. James Lankford, Mike Lee and Cynthia Lummis in introducing the Protecting Drug Innovation Act that would roll back the feds’ authority to negotiate, set and control drug prices under Medicare.

“Democrats’ price controls will hurt Floridians,” said Rubio’s statement that his office released Friday. “There will be less innovation, which means life-saving cancer drugs may not be developed. There will be less production, which means life-sustaining insulin may be harder to find.”

With Rubio’s name on new legislation that would mean taking off the cap that limited seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 a year, his challenger seized on the opportunity. Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings, running to unseat Rubio, released a statement Friday on the bill.

“Shame on him for leading the fight to hike drug prices on Florida’s seniors and putting big Pharma special interests ahead of doing what’s right,” Demings said in a prepared statement. “Floridians deserve a senator who shows up and works for them. In the Senate, I’ll always fight to lower costs for our seniors.”

The Florida Democratic Party also put out a statement pointing out how Rubio has accepted more than $1 million from the drug industry.

President Joe Biden also went on the offensive Friday about what it will mean if the Republicans gain control of Congress in terms of the impact individuals will experience. The White House Friday tweeted a clip of a speech Biden gave in Hagerstown, Maryland as he explained what Republicans are planning should they win control of Congress.

“Republicans (taking) control of Congress means the power we just gave Medicare to negotiate drug prices goes away — gone and prices go back up,” Biden said in the clip. “If Republicans take control of the Congress, the $2,000 cap on prescription drug prices we just passed goes away — gone.”

“If they take back the control of the Congress, the $35 a month cap on insulin for folks on Medicare we just passed goes away — gone,” he added, noting also how the Republicans would also like to kill the Affordable Care Act.  

Rubio’s office flagged research from the University of Chicago that estimated the White House-sponsored Reduction In Inflation Act would prompt a 20% reduction in biomedical research and development over the next 17 years.

“The impact will be felt heavily by Americans suffering from rare and difficult diseases to treat,” Rubio said, in an August news release.

The New York Times, however, says such claims are “misleading.”