Posted by Michael Wonder on 16 Oct 2019
Drug price controls gaining traction at Federal and State levels
15 October 2019 - Prescription drug price controls are gaining momentum nationally and also at the state level. Nationally, lowering drug prices using government levers is an area in which there appears to be at least some degree of bipartisan agreement.
A form of direct price controls was included in the Trump Administration’s International Pricing Index (IPI) model to lower Medicare Part B prices. The Department of Health and Human Services Blueprint was explicit: The purpose of the IPI model is to “phase down the Medicare payment amount for selected Part B drugs to more closely align with international prices.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 3 bill, named Lower Drug Costs Now Act, goes further and applies to a much wider range of drugs, and also introduces monopsony, which would de facto control prices throughout the entire market as government-negotiated prices would be adopted in the commercial sector.
