Negotiating Drug Prices Down
By Another little-known feature of the Inflation Reduction Act goes into effect: The United States government will negotiate drug prices for ten of the most-used drugs under Medicare Part D.
You might think that negotiation is a normal part of a normal market. But Congress, particularly under Republicans, has bowed to Big Pharma’s desire to charge what the market will bear. Healthcare, being made up of choices between life and death, is not a normal market.
Heather Cox Richardson summarizes the issues.
The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that provides budget and economic information to Congress, estimates that government negotiation over these drugs will save taxpayers about $98.5 billion over ten years. If a drug maker refuses to negotiate, it either will face a significant tax or must withdraw from Medicare and Medicaid.
The pharmaceutical manufacturers, of course, are suing to stop the negotiations. I’ve already seen an ad on Twitter from PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, saying that research on new drugs will end if their executives can’t have yachts. Well, not quite that, but you get the idea.
The drugs for which prices are being negotiated are:
- blood thinner Eliquis from Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer
- diabetes drug Januvia from Merck
- Eliquis rival Xarelto from Johnson & Johnson
- leukemia treatment Imbruvica from AbbVie
- rheumatoid arthritis treatment Enbrel from Amgen
- diabetes drug Jardiance from Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly
- arthritis and Crohn’s disease medicine Stelara from J&J
- insulin from Novo Nordisk
- diabetes drug Farxiga from AstraZenica
- heart failure drug Entresto from Novartis