Hillary Clinton Announces Plan to Combat High Prescription Drug Prices

On Friday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan to combat the rising cost of prescription drugs, particularly the excessive rise in costs of live saving prescriptions like the EpiPen. Clinton’s plan would create a federal team to monitor drug prices and track increases. Her plan also provides several actions the government could take when drug prices have been raised excessively such as fines and increased access to treatment programs. An outline of Clinton’s proposal is below, and the full plan can be read on The Briefing.

• Making alternatives available and increasing competition
• Emergency importation of safe treatments
• Penalties for unjustified price increases to hold drug companies accountable and fund expanded access
• Dedicated oversight to protect consumers
• Strong new enforcement measures to respond when there are unjustified, outlier price increases that threaten public health
  • Directly intervening to make treatments available, and supporting generic and alternative manufacturers that enter the market and increase competition to bring down prices
  • Broadening access to safe, high-quality generic and alternative competitors through emergency importation
  • Holding drug makers accountable for unjustified price increases with new penalties – and using the funds to expand access and competition
• Cap monthly and annual out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs to save patients with chronic or serious health conditions hundreds or thousands of dollars
• Clear out the FDA generic backlog
• Prohibit “pay for delay” arrangements that keep generic competition off the market
• Ensure American consumers are getting value for their drugs
• Stop direct-to-consumer drug company advertising subsidies, and reinvest funds in research
• Require drug companies that benefit from taxpayers’ support to invest in research, not marketing or profits
• Allow Medicare to negotiate drug and biologic prices and demand higher rebates for prescription drugs in Medicare

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: The Briefing, The New York Times

Clinton Unveils Wall Street Plan

MANCHESTER, NH – SEPTEMBER 19: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raises her arms stands on stage during the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention at the Verizon Wireless Center on September 19, 2015 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

On Thursday, Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled her plan to regulate Wall Street and protect Americans. In an op-ed on Bloomberg she explained her plan and her reasoning for a number of its points. She then released details of the plan on The Briefing. The plan is very detailed and it would be impossible to insert the entire plan into this post. We have summarized the main points below:

• Defend and preserve Dodd-Frank
  • Veto any legislation that attempts to weaken the law
  • Fight Republican attempts to repeal it
• Reduce dangerous risks in the financial system
  • Impose a “risk fee” on the liabilities with of banks with more than $50 billion in assets
  • Reorganize, downsize, or break apart firms that are too large and too risky
  • Increase oversight of the “shadow banking” system to reduce risk
  • Introduce high-frequency trading tax for the stock markets
  • Impose compensation rules on senior management of banking institutions that suffer losses that threaten its financial health
  • Strengthen the Vlocker Rule (which prohibits banks from making risky or speculative trading bets with taxpayer-backed money)
  • Increase transparency in the banking system
  • Introduce international cooperation to curb excessive risk-taking
  • Increase the financial system’s security against cyber attacks
• Hold individuals and corporations responsible when they break the law or put the system at risk
  • Ensure individual accountability when prosecuting wrongdoing
  • Ensure that fines affect the bonuses of executives, supervisors, and employees with misconduct takes place on their watch
  • Prohibit individuals in financial services from working in the industry after being convicted of egregious crimes
  • Extend the statute of limitations for financial fraud
  • Strongly prosecute insider traders
  • Create guidelines for that ensure transparency and accountability
  • Require that corporations admit to wrongdoing as a condition of settlement agreements
  • Increase transparency of corporate settlements
  • Restrict SEC waivers for repeat offenders
  • Give prosecutors the resources to punish law-breakers
  • Strengthen the SEC and CFTC
  • Increase maximum penalties for SEC and CFTC actions
  • Reward whistleblowers for bringing illegal activities to attention of authorities
• Ensure that the financial systems serves investors and consumers, not just itself
  • Make sure that Wall Street helps Main Street grow and prosper
  • Protect all Americans from unfair and deceptive practices that put their earned income at risk

Clinton’s plan protects hard working Americans while ensuring that those who threaten the economy and financial system as a whole are held accountable. You can read the plan in full on The Briefing and read her op-ed on Bloomberg. She summed up her plan saying, “The bottom line is that we can never allow what happened in 2008 to happen again. Just as important, we have to encourage Wall Street to live up to its proper role in our economy — helping Main Street grow and prosper. With strong rules of the road and smart incentives, the financial industry can help more young families buy that first home, make it possible for entrepreneurs to create new small businesses and support hardworking Americans saving for retirement. My plan will help us unlock that potential. We’ll create good-paying jobs, raise incomes and help families afford a middle-class life, with less speculation and more growth — growth that’s strong, fair and long-term. That’s what I’m fighting for in my campaign, and that’s what I’ll do as president.”

Tonight, Clinton will present an award during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala, and she will attend a private fundraiser in Washington, DC. For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

News Source: Bloomberg, The Briefing, The New York Times, Business Insider