Medicare has previously been unable to negotiate drug prices.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden, who is campaigning for re-election with a strong emphasis on easing voters’ financial woes, launched an effort on Tuesday to cut the cost of certain prescription drugs — a move Big Pharma promised in court to keep fighting.
“Millions of Americans are forced to choose between paying for the medicines they need to live or paying for food, rent and other basic necessities. Those days are coming to an end,” the Democratic president promised in a statement.
Later, in a speech at the White House, Biden said that pharmaceutical giants “hope the courts will do what the Democrats in Congress wouldn’t do: protect their exorbitant profits and hold back negotiations.”
Using new powers under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, a major legislative package of energy transition policies and social reforms, the U.S. government has selected ten drugs for which Medicare, the over-65s health insurance plan, will be able to negotiate the price.
Medicare has previously failed to negotiate drug prices, which has resulted in U.S. drug costs being higher than “any other major economy in the world,” Biden said.
According to a study by the Rand Corporation, the United States pays an average of 2.5 times more for prescription drugs than countries like France.
According to the US government, seniors had to spend a total of $3.4 billion out of pocket last year to buy the ten drugs on the list, including treatments for blood clots, diabetes, heart problems, psoriasis and blood cancer.
White House officials would not specify how much cost savings they expected from the negotiations, but Biden cited the administration’s ability to get veterans’ drug prices “50 percent lower than Medicare.”
Under the IRA, the federal government can continue to add more drugs to its negotiating list each year.
The pharmaceutical industry has resisted Medicare price negotiations for decades, and several companies have already announced lawsuits against this action.
One of the treatments on the original list, the anticoagulant drug Eliquis (apixaban), is used by more than 3.7 million Medicare beneficiaries.
The lab that produces it, Bristol Myers Squibb, says Medicare beneficiaries who are prescribed this drug “can currently get it at a relatively low out-of-pocket cost of $55 a month on average,” claiming Biden’s initiative that is “at risk” .
The Johnson & Johnson group, which manufactures two of the drugs on the list, said the reform “would limit medical innovation, limit patient access and choice and negatively impact the overall quality of care. “
– 2024 in sight –
With the price change not due until January 2026, the immediate political advantage for Biden is uncertain.
The 80-year-old president, whose re-election bid met with little enthusiasm, is counting on announcements like Tuesday’s, as well as a measure to freeze the price of insulin for many Americans at $35 a month, to bolster his support. campaign.
Often praising his relentless optimism, Biden on Tuesday again criticized statements by Republican candidates for the White House — especially former President Donald Trump — about the US’s “decline.”
“Better days are coming,” he promised.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published through a syndicated feed.)
