Posted by Michael Wonder on 28 Oct 2016
In Washington’s drug price fight, plenty of blame to go around
27 October 2016 - Drug price legislation could be attached to FDA bill next year.
Two weeks before the U.S. decides on its next president, the health-care industry’s finger-pointing over drug costs is heating up. Insurers and pharmacy benefit managers blame pharmaceutical companies. Drugmakers blame insurers. And have you seen how much money the hospitals spend?
Whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins on Nov. 8, most of the players are betting that something will get done on the cost of prescription drugs. They’re laying defensive and offensive groundwork for when new laws are drawn up by a Congress that has spent the last year holding hearings on the issue.
A prime example is a new ad out Wednesday from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the Washington lobby group, making the case that high list prices don’t represent what drugmakers really get and that middlemen take a big cut.
