Exclusive: Cruz and Roy unveil legislation to cut red tape in healthcare

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Chip Roy reintroduced legislation Wednesday to cut red tape preventing Americans from accessing pharmaceutical drugs and medical therapies available in other countries.

The GOP lawmakers’ Reciprocity Ensures Streamlined Use of Lifesaving Treatments (RESULT) Act would expedite the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug approval process to give Americans access to drugs and devices already approved in certain countries, according to background on the bill shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The bill requires the agency to act within a 30-day window on denying or granting an application requesting reciprocal approval of drugs approved in other like-minded countries, including European Union member countries, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and Japan.

“Washington bureaucracy and regulations far too often interfere with the healthcare decisions of patients and their doctors,” Cruz told the DCNF. “The RESULT Act will facilitate access to life-saving drugs, devices, and medical treatments that are already proven safe and effective in other trusted countries, empowering patients to access the medications they need to improve their health. I’m proud to be advancing it, and I call upon my colleagues to expeditiously take it up and pass it.”

Cruz and Roy have introduced the RESULT Act several times in previous Congresses. The lawmakers are hopeful that Robert F. Kennedy’s pledge to “Make America Healthy Again” and commitment to disrupt the healthcare status quo will lead the newly-confirmed Health and Human Services secretary to support passage of the RESULT Act.

“I like Bobby a lot. I think he is a change agent,” Cruz told Texas local news station KGNS-TV on Jan. 30. “I think he, in particular, he’s willing to take on the cronyism that we see in the Department of Health and Human Services of giant corporations, Big Pharma, that gets in bed with the regulators, and you end up having huge barriers to new drugs, huge barriers to new medical devices. And I think he’s going to shake, shake it up. I think, I think patients have a right to try.”

“It makes no sense that if, God forbid, you have some life threatening disease, that you should have to travel to another country to get the medicines you need, because the bureaucrats here won’t approve it,” Cruz continued. “I think Bobby Kennedy is coming in with that spirit of change. I think that’s really exciting. And I got to say, Make America Healthy Again is something that is exciting.”

“Waiting for a pencil-pusher in Washington to green-light medications that are already approved in other trusted countries is the epitome of the bureaucratic nightmare that has plagued our healthcare system,” Roy told the DCNF. “This bill would cut through a wall of red tape that separates Americans from getting the care that they need, which means prioritizing their healthcare freedom.”

The bill also gives Congress the authority to override an FDA decision denying reciprocal approval of a drug or device by a simple majority vote via a joint resolution, according to the bill text.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are cosponsoring Cruz’s legislation.

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