Aaron Bean to host health care summit on prescription drug policy

U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean will host a second event in Washington, D.C., on health care policy Thursday.

The Fernandina Beach Republican plans to bring voices of prescription drug policy into the same room to inform a looming debate on hospital reimbursement. The event at the Longworth House Office building will give an opportunity to discuss the future of the 340B Drug Discount program in place since 1992.

“Our health care is in trouble,” Bean said. “We’ve got to come up with a better plan than what’s out there right now.”

This event will be part of a Path to Consensus series Bean kicked off in December to illuminate complicated policy debates in Congress. The first looked at tax credits tied to the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, and occurred as pandemic era subsidies were sunsetting.

“I was leaning against the subsidies extension, because the more we researched, they were a disaster. They’re expensive, they’re fraud-ridden. People were being signed up without the knowledge. So when we had that debate, I was already there,” Bean said.

“But 340B, I am a free agent. Somebody sell me.”

The event will feature one panel with hospital and pharmaceutical industry leaders. Shayne Woods of Alpine Group Partners will moderate a discussion with Bharath Krishnamurthy, Director of Pharmaceutical Policy for the American Hospital Association, and Karyn Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Policy and Research Development for PhRMA.

Another panel will explore site neutral payments. Chris Jones, Director of Federal Government Relations at BIO, will manage a panel including Mary Mayhew, President and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association; Dr. Asmita Mishra, Medical Director of Payer Strategies for Moffitt Cancer Center; Michael Baker, Director of Health Care Policy for the American Action Forum; and Anna Bonelli, Director of Health Policy for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The event will also have a keynote address from Brittany Madni, Executive Vice President of the Economic Policy Innovation Center.

“The hospitals will make a play for it. Pharma will make a play for it,” Bean said. “And then we’ll see. The end result may be not just eliminating completely. Maybe it’s other guardrails.”

Bean said members of Congress get heavily lobbied, even with advertising on smart devices on their own time. His goal is to get the most fundamental data in front of members in an informal event held on Capitol Hill. This is organized by his official office in a chamber for the House Ways and Means Committee, on which he serves.

“I was elected, I think, to help tackle the debt, or at least turn the ship in a direction that we’re not overspending as much,” Bean said. “We cannot do so without reforming health care.”

He noted that mandatory spending obligations tied to Medicare and Medicaid make up a massive portion of federal spending behind only Social Security. He stressed he’s not aiming at eliminating all safety nets for citizens.

“It should be the neediest among us. It was never designed to cover able-bodied working Americans. That was not the design of it, and we’ve expanded it so much that now its core mission has become questionable because that money isn’t there to cover it. We’re getting thinner,” Bean said.

“Now, if we were in a different spot, if we had a $38 trillion surplus instead of a deficit, then we could look at other things. But we’ve got to have something that’s sustainable. Our current program is not sustainable.”

The event begins at 1 p.m. on Thursday.