High drug costs are burdening seniors and people with disabilities with excessive out-of-pocket expenses and straining the Medicare program’s finances.
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Medicare 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.
Related Reading:
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.
Related Reading:
via twitter.
Related Reading:
How the Affordable Care Act Helps Seniors.
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.
- Lower-Cost Prescription Drugs.
- Preventive Services and Annual Wellness Visit.
- Lower Medicare Part B Premiums.
- Medicare Fraud, Waste and Abuse.
When it comes to reining in high drug costs, the public supports a wide range of policy actions.
via Kaiser Health News.
Related Reading:
Options for Implementing Medicare Drug Negotiation.
- National polls show that most Americans, across party lines, support allowing the federal government to negotiate with drug companies as a way to bring down the cost of prescription drugs.
- 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.
Read more from this issue brief by clicking here.
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.
Related Reading:
Options for Implementing Medicare Drug Negotiation.
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.
Medicare accounts for a growing share of prescription drug spending in the U.S.: 29% in 2014 vs. 18% in 2006.
Related Reading:
- Options for Implementing Medicare Drug Negotiation.
- 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.
via twitter.
Related Reading:
Letter Urging Cosponsoring of “The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act”.
We support Congressman Doggett’s bill because it would allow the Secretary of Health & Human Services to directly negotiate prices for prescription drugs and issue a competitive license allowing other manufacturers to produce the drug for Medicare in the event negotiations fail.
Hill Democrats Get Tough on Big Pharma, Prescription Drug Prices.
Last week, Democrats introduced legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. This week, the new chairman of a key House committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), announced an investigation into skyrocketing drug costs.
via Kaiser Health News.
Related Reading:
Letter Urging Cosponsoring of “The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act”.
We support Congressman Doggett’s bill because it would allow the Secretary of Health & Human Services to directly negotiate prices for prescription drugs and issue a competitive license allowing other manufacturers to produce the drug for Medicare in the event negotiations fail.
Hill Democrats Get Tough on Big Pharma, Prescription Drug Prices.
Last week, Democrats introduced legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. This week, the new chairman of a key House committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), announced an investigation into skyrocketing drug costs.
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.
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