Posted by Michael Wonder on 06 Feb 2019
The best way to lower drug prices: end the Medicaid program that blocks discounts
5 February 2019 - On January 31, the Trump Administration unveiled a long-awaited plan to outlaw controversial rebates that drugmakers pay to pharmacy benefit managers and plan sponsors that negotiate drug prices on behalf of federal programs.
Those rebates are supposed to lower the prices that health plans charge their patients––and the Administration swears that the those tens in billions in cash aren’t benefiting folks who get their prescriptions filled at the corner pharmacy counters or delivered by mail.
As part of the announcement, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a “Fact Sheet” that declared in Trumpian rhetoric, “This proposal has the potential to be the most sweeping change to how Americans’ drugs are priced at the pharmacy counter, ever, by delivering discounts directly to patients a the pharmacy counter, and bringing much needed transparency to a broken system.”
