January 26, 2026
Florida House of Representatives
Budget Committee
Morris Hall (17 HOB)
Florida State Capitol
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Dear Representative,
On January 27, 2026, the Budget Committee will hold a hearing on HB 697. On behalf of the 20,863 members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) in Florida, I urge you to oppose this legislation, which would impose government price controls on prescription drugs by tying reimbursement rates in Florida to prices set by foreign governments. While lowering drug prices is a laudable goal, HB 697 is the wrong solution in a state that promotes and values innovation and limited regulations.
Prices based on foreign benchmarks, also known as Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing, import the worst features of overseas government-run healthcare systems, where treatments are routinely delayed, denied, and restricted. The result is longer wait times limited choices for patients and physicians, and less access to medicines. The disastrous effects of price controls on patients was cited in an August 2022 University of Chicago issue brief, which found that price controls would increase healthcare spending by $50.8 billion over the next 20 years and lead to 135 fewer drugs, which will have a negative impact on 2.47 million patients. While nearly all new medicines are available to patients in the United States, far fewer reach patients in countries that rely on government price-setting. Reduced access inevitably means declining health outcomes, particularly for patients facing serious or life-threatening conditions. HB 697 would outsource Americans’ healthcare decisions to foreign governments’ one-size-fits-all bureaucratic, socialist judgments. As noted in a December 18, 2021, blog post, price controls would lead to an “invisible graveyard of Americans.”
Beyond harming patients, MFN pricing threatens America’s global leadership in medical innovation, which is due in large part to a system that rewards risky long-term investments in biomedical research. Government-imposed price caps as proposed in HB 697 would drain billions of dollars from research and development, delay future cures, and cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Over time, such policies would hand the advantage in biopharmaceutical research and development to foreign competitors, including China, at the expense of American businesses and patients.
HB 697 would undermine patient care, stifle innovation, and replace market-based solutions with government rationing. Floridians deserve better. In President Trump’s first administration, the Council of Economic Advisers’ February 2020 report found that American patients pay more for biopharmaceutical drugs due to free-riding and price controls by foreign countries and that reducing both would increase competition and lower drug prices for Americans. Rather than adopting MFN, Florida legislators should encourage the Trump administration to include drug pricing in its trade negotiations with foreign countries and speed up the approval of new drugs.
For the above reasons, I urge you to stand with Florida patients, providers, and innovators by opposing HB 697.
Sincerely,
Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW