everything happening in washington each day. subscribe today using the qr code or visit c-span.org/connect to subscribe anytime. >> be up-to-date with but tv's podcasts about books. current nonfiction book releases plus bestseller lists. you can find about books on c-span now our free mobile apps or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: guest running us served at the president -- guest: how are you? host: you are joining as to talk about the aspects of inflation

production output first tell us about your organization put is it an what did you bring to health care? guest: we are a nonprofit founded in 2016 and now we have 25 people headquartered as he said in austin, texas. we also have offices in washington, d.c. and our mission is to expand economic opportunity to those who leased have it. or goal is to show how despite this narrative you hear about that we are hopelessly divided as a country, that actually most americans agree on what america stands for. a place where everyone has an equal shot at success. we see our role in providing ideas that both democrats and republicans can think of as advancing their values. both regressive and policy outcomes but free-market and orientation so that both sides

can get behind them and make a difference for the people struggling. host: when it comes to your funding where does it come from? guest: primarily from individuals and foundations. host: when it comes to the inflation production act, remind people what it does in the realm of her mystical drugs and what the impact -- pharmaceutical drugs and what the impact is? guest: despite a lot of the noise, they are purely to flip modest. it is an incremental change. there are 4100 drugs that the medicare part b and d cover. if you get a prescription they are paid for by medicare. what the new law says is that for 20 of those drugs, the most expensive to the medicare

program, to the taxpayers and seniors who pray premiums the top 20 drugs will be ones where the government, after a. of time, 12 years of them being on the market will try to negotiate the prices down and try to get a better deal for taxpayers. it is a modest bill but because the drugs, each of those drugs can be tens of billions of dollars in spending the impact fiscally is pretty significant. host: if i am a pharmaceutical manufacturer i am looking at the perspective what is the general consensus? guest: what you hear the pharmaceutical lobby say p hrama as it is caused they will make less money and if they make less money they will invest less money in research and development and if they invest less money in research and development that means fewer,

new treatments and cures for patients. that is their argument. as i mentioned, part of our mission is to use innovation. we are very much in favor of innovation and our research shows and we have eight washington post op-ed that we published a couple of weeks ago that talks about our research. it shows that if you take those older drugs that are 10, 15, 20 years old that have been around for a long time and the companies that have made a lot of money and start negotiating on those, it has almost no impact on innovation. most innovation is happening at small startups not these big multinational arm a suitable giants. host: can you elaborate on that? guest: if you look at the industry as a whole thousands of companies out there, they are the big ones most people have heard of like pfizer or merck. those are some of the big

companies that have been around for a long time in some cases hundreds of years, you see a lot of commercials on tv for prescription drugs. a lot of the new drugs, the new treatments that we enjoy or help us with diseases where there wasn't an effective treatment those are often developed at start up companies that you have never heard of. eventually from public investors and those companies operate at a phosphor for avon time because they are spending a lot but they don't have drugs approved by the fda to generate any money. so those unprofitable companies that are supported by investors, those are the ones where innovation is happening. because the fda, the drug approval process is so expensive in many cases, they need a lot of money from investors and others to support their work.

what happens is these larger companies like pfizer they come in and of in at the last minute when the drug is about to get approved and they will do the last bit to get it over the finish line and they can consider the money. one example of that is the pfizer vaccine. what we know as the pfizer vaccine was not developed by pfizer. it was developed by a german startup called biontech. we know the u.s. market, there are a lot of hurdles here. so to give up the right to your drug and we will sell it in the u.s. and the german companies that we don't have the resources so we will let you go ahead and do that. now we call it the pfizer vaccine but pfizer did not develop the vaccine. host: our guest with us until 930 if you want to ask questions about prescription drugs.

(202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats and independents (202) 748-8002. you can texas too at (202) 748-8003. you mentioned the big pharmaceutical companiesp,harma is there trade organization they put out an ad. i want to play you the ad. you can hear it and then get your response to it. [video clip] >> it could mean fewer medicines in the coming years. which ones could be lost? today, there are 90 netizens in development for alzheimer's. 20 for childhood diabetes. 119 for breast cancer. the list goes on. which of these could go untreated if government passes this? paid for by pharma.

host: you respond to that? guest: almost every sentence in that ad is wrong. first of all, as i mentioned, this edit care negotiation only affects 20 drugs out of 4100. it does not affect people who get the prescription drugs from private insurers who are not elderly for over 65, people who are on medicaid. this is only for people in medicare. that is a significant population. that is not the whole country, first of all. it is a very small number of drugs. the idea that drug companies. developing drugs for alzheimer's or breast cancer because 20 out

of 4100 drugs are being negotiated medicare is preposterous. as i mentioned, if you already made a lot of money, the way the bill is designed it is really focused on drugs that have been on the market for a very long time where the returns have already been generated. so take humera. it is the best-selling they generate $20 billion a year before the patent expired. so they made a lot of money. way more than they spent developing it. at this point, if they start to negotiate the price at the tail end of that drug's life. it's not likely will be discouraged and say we are going to quit. that's not going to happen. two say press cancer and alzheimer's as the examples those are huge markets.

that's going to be a drug that generates 20 million or 20 billion or more in sales. more than enough to pay for the investment. this bill does not affect that at all. it is just the economic argument they are making is wrong. on a more basic principle level, the pharmaceutical industry negotiates with payers all the time. when an insurance company says we have a new drug out should recover that drug in our insurance plan that is a back-and-forth negotiation. when pharmaceutical companies negotiate with other countries whether it is a single pay system they also have to say does it work and is it worth what you are charging for it? there is a back-and-forth.

only in the u.s. for the drug companies are able to tell medicare we are going to charge and you have to pay it law and you have no ability to say yes or no to the price. that makes no sense. in no other context what we consider that a market. a market is when there is a buyer and a seller and they fight with each other about what to pay for something. when you have a monopoly power, there is nobody else who can make that drug and you just say we are going to treat the taxpayers like an atm. whatever we want to charge for this drug the medicare program has to pay. that is not capitalism. that is not a free market. that is not a fair system for generating a price system.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the spoom, washington, d.c. august 30, 2022. i hereby appoint the honorable mr. mfume to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. thsp