A day after he questioned Democratic
presidential rival Hillary Clinton's gaffe on Nancy Reagan's
leadership on AIDS, Senator Bernie Sanders has released plans to
defeat the pandemic.
“One of the great moral issues of our
day is that people with HIV and AIDS are suffering, and in some
cases, dying in America because they can't afford to pay the
outrageous prices being charged for the medicine they need to live,”
the Sanders campaign said in a statement.
“In the richest nation in the world,
we must not tolerate a health care system that offers the best care
to the rich, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. We
must do everything possible to end the greed of the pharmaceutical
companies and get people the medicine they need at a price they can
afford.”
Sanders' plan for an AIDS-free
generation revolves around an annual “Prize Fund” of more than $3
billion annually that would reward innovation.
“The Prize Fund would reward medical
researchers and developers of medicines based primarily upon the
added therapeutic value a new treatment offers and the number of
people it benefits” the campaign said. “Instead of a system
where the market is manipulated to keep out all competition,
companies would be rewarded for their innovation with a cash prize
for their medical innovations, rather than through the grant of a
monopoly. Under Bernie's plan, drugs would have generic competition
immediately after FDA approval.”
The proposal also calls for the
Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with
pharmaceutical companies and “reduce barriers to the importation of
lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries.” Other measures
cited include the expansion of health services currently in place,
including the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program.
On Sunday, Sanders said that Clinton,
who has apologized for the gaffe, was wrong about the Reagans' AIDS
advocacy.
(Related: Bernie
Sanders speaks out against Hillary Clinton gaffe on Nancy Reagan's
AIDS advocacy.)