“All this consolidation among drugstores means the remaining players have more market power and more economies of scale,” said Sean D. Sullivan, a pharmacy professor at the University of Washington.
“That could mean lower prices for customers. But what you usually see instead is higher prices because of monopoly-like power.”
via Los Angeles Times.
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#politics #health care #prescription drugs #medicare #seniors #Rx drugs #healthcare #p2 #older americans #entitlements #entitlement reformMedicare spent $97 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, accounting for more than a quarter of the nation’s spending on prescription medicines. Those numbers are expected to continue rising in coming years, as spending on the Part D benefit accelerates. Policymakers have put a number of proposals on the table to reduce the growth in Medicare drug spending and costs for beneficiaries, including a controversial proposal that would change the way Medicare pays for Part B drugs administered by doctors.
Options for Implementing Medicare Drug Negotiation.
Letter to Senate Finance on High Drug Costs.
In this year’s presidential campaign, health care has taken a back seat. But one issue appears to be breaking through: the rising cost of prescription drugs.
via Kaiser Health News.
via twitter.
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The ACA provides new ways to help hospitals, doctors and other health care providers coordinate care for beneficiaries so that health care quality is improved and unnecessary spending reduced.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is working on a bipartisan plan to cap seniors’ expenses for prescription drugs in Medicare as part of a broader effort to lower drug prices.
Grassley told The Hill on Wednesday that one idea he is working on with Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the panel, is “some sort of maximum amount that one person would have to pay” for drugs.
via The Hill.
Join us on Facebook Live today at 2pm EDT as we discuss the impact of 2018 spending bill on seniors and the rising cost of Medicare prescription drugs.
The survey showed more than 93% of adults 50 and older said they favored the Medicare price negotiations, a policy advocated by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. President Obama included such price negotiation authority for drugs known as biologics and “high-cost drugs” in his recent budget proposals.
via USA TODAY.
via twitter.
Related Reading:
The ACA provides new ways to help hospitals, doctors and other health care providers coordinate care for beneficiaries so that health care quality is improved and unnecessary spending reduced. Improvements made in the ACA to Medicare preventive services and prescription drug coverage have lowered the out-of-pocket costs of millions of seniors.
When it comes to reining in high drug costs, the public supports a wide range of policy actions.
via Kaiser Health News.
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Here’s a riddle about drug pricing to ask our healthcare administrators, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: Since the prices of generic drugs haven’t risen since 2011—in fact, in many cases have fallen—why have out-of-pocket costs for seniors on Medicare nearly doubled?
That’s the finding in a new analysis by the healthcare consulting firm Avalere Health, which studied the trends in co-pay charges for enrollees in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit. The benefit is administered by private insurance companies. The insurers have great latitude to establish out-of-pocket co-pays and structure their formularies—the roster of drugs they cover—as long as they meet broad rules set down by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency under HHS.
via Los Angeles Times.
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The Trump administration proposed on Monday to cut costs for Medicare by reducing the number of prescription drugs that must be made available to people with cancer, AIDS, depression, schizophrenia and certain other conditions.
Under the proposal, health insurance plans that provide drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries would no longer have to cover all of the drugs in six “protected classes.”
via New York Times.
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At a time when policymakers are seeking ways to lower the federal deficit and overall health care spending, proposals that reduce Medicare prescription drug costs cannot be overlooked.
