Task Force May Call for Panel on Drug Prices : Health: Board would pressure firms to hold down costs, apparently without price controls, paper reports. The model is Canadian agency.

President Clinton’s task force on health care reform may suggest that the government establish a review board that would pressure drug companies to keep down prices and reprimand those whose prices are considered excessive, a published report says.

The review board would make suggestions about drug prices, but, after lobbying by the drug industry, the task force apparently has backed away from the idea of trying to impose legally binding price controls, the New York Times reported in today’s editions. It cited confidential work papers obtained from the President’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform.

The board would be loosely modeled after a Canadian agency, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which has helped slow the rise of drug prices in Canada, the newspaper said.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Oakland), chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, has introduced a bill to create a similar board here, and the American Assn. of Retired Persons supports the proposal.

Under the review system, the newspaper said, the board would collect data on drug prices and manufacturing costs and could, through “adverse publicity,” pressure a company to reduce prices.

“Under this option,” the newspaper quoted the work papers as saying, “the board would collect information about prices, and it would establish guidelines as to a reasonable price for prescription drugs that have no therapeutic alternative.

“It would have the authority to publicly condemn any companies that violated the guidelines.”

Drug companies oppose a price review board, fearing government access to their confidential data. They also worry that Congress, which must authorize the creation of a review board, might later empower it to actually set prices.

Clinton has not decided whether to propose such a board. The task force’s health care reform plan is to be ready sometime in June.

Clinton’s new health plan is based on a strategy of managed competition, which envisions networks of doctors and hospitals competing under government supervision.