![](https://i.imgur.com/CLvY2jA.png")
07-10-2021, 08:16 AM
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
yesterday
......
Negotiating Medicare drug prices is the linchpin of President Joe Biden’s ambitious health care agenda. Not only would consumers see lower costs, but savings would be plowed into other priorities such as dental coverage for retirees and lower premiums for people with plans under the Obama-era health law.
To do that, Congress would have to change an unusual arrangement that’s written into law.
When lawmakers created Medicare’s Part D outpatient prescription drug program in 2003, they barred Medicare from negotiating prices. Republicans who controlled Congress at the time wanted insurers that administer drug plans to do the haggling. Medicare was sidelined, despite decades of experience setting prices for hospitals, doctors and nursing homes.
......
Known as the “noninterference clause,” the ban has been unbendable. That’s the way the pharmaceutical industry wants to keep it.
......
Politicians including former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have supported Medicare negotiations. But it’s Biden, with Pelosi doing much of the lifting, who’s come closest to getting it done.
And it still might not happen.
......
Amid a furious lobbying and advertising campaign, the AARP, consumer groups, and health insurers are pressing for Medicare negotiations.
Business groups and the pharmaceutical industry are opposed. Drug companies have spent US$171 million so far this year on lobbying, far above any other industry
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-bus...1aec19b60c
yesterday
......
Negotiating Medicare drug prices is the linchpin of President Joe Biden’s ambitious health care agenda. Not only would consumers see lower costs, but savings would be plowed into other priorities such as dental coverage for retirees and lower premiums for people with plans under the Obama-era health law.
To do that, Congress would have to change an unusual arrangement that’s written into law.
When lawmakers created Medicare’s Part D outpatient prescription drug program in 2003, they barred Medicare from negotiating prices. Republicans who controlled Congress at the time wanted insurers that administer drug plans to do the haggling. Medicare was sidelined, despite decades of experience setting prices for hospitals, doctors and nursing homes.
......
Known as the “noninterference clause,” the ban has been unbendable. That’s the way the pharmaceutical industry wants to keep it.
......
Politicians including former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have supported Medicare negotiations. But it’s Biden, with Pelosi doing much of the lifting, who’s come closest to getting it done.
And it still might not happen.
......
Amid a furious lobbying and advertising campaign, the AARP, consumer groups, and health insurers are pressing for Medicare negotiations.
Business groups and the pharmaceutical industry are opposed. Drug companies have spent US$171 million so far this year on lobbying, far above any other industry
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-bus...1aec19b60c
