美国国家公共电台 NPR California Bill Would Compel Drugmakers To Justify Price Hikes

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

California may be about to deal the drug lobby a rare defeat. The legislature has sent a bill to the governor that would compel pharmaceutical¹ companies to justify² big price hikes on drugs. This comes after the industry spent a lot of money campaigning against the bill. From member station KQED in San Francisco, April Dembosky reports.

APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE³: This is the second life for this drug price legislation. Last year, the same bill crashed and burned. It got gutted⁴ so badly, the authors pulled it. A week later, this happened.

(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS MONTAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Firestorm of controversy⁵ over the price of lifesaving EpiPens...

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Cost of those EpiPens has risen nearly 500 percent...

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: The chorus of voices expressing outrage⁶ at the drug company.

DEMBOSKY: Momentum⁷ grew. Federal lawmakers called for hearings. Several proposed bills to rein⁸ in drug costs. Then, this happened.

(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS MONTAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: Donald J. Trump⁹.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #6: Donald Trump elected president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #7: Let the health care battle began.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Repeal¹⁰ and replace.

Repeal and replace Obamacare.

The drug industry because they're getting away with murder.

DEMBOSKY: The time was right for California state Senator Ed Hernandez to reintroduce his bill. It requires drug companies to give notice anytime they plan to raise the price on a drug by 16 percent over two years. And they'll have to explain why the increases are necessary. Hernandez says political support grew quickly this time around and from more than just the usual suspects.

ED HERNANDEZ: It wasn't just labor¹¹. It was consumer groups. It was health plans. It was the chambers¹² of commerce. It was the hospital association.

DEMBOSKY: Hernandez is optimistic the governor will sign it into law, but he knows nothing's certain. Just when he thought he'd secured all the votes he needed, at the last minute, they started slipping away.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote.

DEMBOSKY: The bill needed 41 votes to pass the state assembly, but it started to stall around 35. Hernandez says he had plenty of colleagues willing to be the 42nd vote. But with drug lobbyists swarming¹³ the Capitol, no one wanted to be the deciding vote.

HERNANDEZ: If the bill fails and you're stuck out there, then, you know, you're - you're the person that's attacking that industry.

DEMBOSKY: But once the threshold was passed, everyone glommed on. In the end, the bill passed with 66 votes. All the Democrats¹⁴ and half the Republicans in the state assembly voted for it much to the dismay of drug companies. Priscilla Vanderveer from the industry's trade group says the regulations could stifle¹⁵ innovation.

PRISCILLA VANDERVEER: That takes up a lot of resources and will take up a lot of time. And that could mean pulling resources from research and development and having to put it into the reporting structure.

DEMBOSKY: The drug lobby spent close to $17 million trying to defeat drug bills in California in the last two and a half years and focused especially hard on this one. Experts say the drug industry just doesn't want a large influential¹⁶ state like California forcing them to share their data with the rest of the country. Gerard Anderson is a public health professor at Johns Hopkins.

GERARD ANDERSON: Other states get to essentially¹⁷ piggyback on the good efforts of California. And hopefully, because they might have difficulty justifying¹⁸ the price increases, everybody's prices around the country will be lower.

DEMBOSKY: But Anderson warns that drugmakers are already planning ways to work around the bill. They've filed lawsuits¹⁹ to try to slow or weaken similar laws in other states. California's governor must decide to sign or veto the bill by October 15. For NPR News, I'm April Dembosky in San Francisco.

SIEGEL: And that story is part of a reporting partnership²⁰ of NPR, KQED and Kaiser Health News.

1 pharmaceutical   

adj.药学的，药物的；药用的，药剂师的

参考例句：

• She has donated money to establish a pharmaceutical laboratory.她捐款成立了一个药剂实验室。
• We are engaged in a legal tussle with a large pharmaceutical company.我们正同一家大制药公司闹法律纠纷。

2 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 gutted   

adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏

参考例句：

• Disappointed? I was gutted! 失望？我是伤心透了！
• The invaders gutted the historic building. 侵略者们将那幢历史上有名的建筑洗劫一空。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

6 outrage   

n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒

参考例句：

• When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
• We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。

7 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

8 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

9 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

10 repeal   

n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消

参考例句：

• He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
• He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由，赞成废除该法令。

11 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

12 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

13 swarming   

密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。
• The beach is swarming with bathers. 海滩满是海水浴的人。

14 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 stifle   

vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止

参考例句：

• She tried hard to stifle her laughter.她强忍住笑。
• It was an uninteresting conversation and I had to stifle a yawn.那是一次枯燥无味的交谈，我不得不强忍住自己的呵欠。

16 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

17 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

18 justifying   

证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护）

参考例句：

• He admitted it without justifying it. 他不加辩解地承认这个想法。
• The fellow-travellers'service usually consisted of justifying all the tergiversations of Soviet intenal and foreign policy. 同路人的服务通常包括对苏联国内外政策中一切互相矛盾之处进行辩护。

19 lawsuits   

n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权，耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
• I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多，赢的也多，输的也多。 来自辞典例句

20 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。