Medicare Drug Price Negotiation
Original Article: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/08/29/hhs-selects-the-first-drugs-for-medicare-drug-price-negotiation.html
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced 10 drugs for price negotiation
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, allows Medicare to negotiate the prices of some prescription drugs directly with drug companies. The selected drugs make up 20%, or $50.5 billion, of Part D prescription drug costs between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023. The negotiation will include discussion on how beneficial the drugs are, how impactful it is for people on Medicare, and how costly the drug research and development process was.
What are the drugs?
On August 29, HHS announced the 10 drugs they selected for the first round of negotiation.
- Eliquis (reduces blood clotting and prevents stroke)
- Jardiance (improves glucose control for type 2 diabetes)
- Xarelto (reduces blood clotting and prevents stroke)
- Januvia (improves glucose control for type 2 diabetes)
- Farxiga (treats type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease)
- Entresto (treats heart failure)
- Enbrel (treats autoimmune diseases)
- Imbruvica (treats lymphocytic leukemia)
- Stelara (treats psoriasis, arthritis, and Crohn’s disease)
- Fiasp; Fiasp FlexTouch; Fiasp PenFill; NovoLog; NovoLog FlexPen; NovoLog PenFill (insulin products for diabetes)
What does this mean?
This act was created with the hopes to reduce the cost of commonly used drugs. The out-of-pocket costs that people on Medicare spent on the selected drugs amounted to $3.4 billion in 2022. The new drug prices will be set by September 1, 2024 and go into effect on January 1, 2026 and will improve the accessibility of these 10 drugs for people on Medicare at lower costs.
