Some Democrats oppose Biden’s goal of lowering more Medicare drug prices

The Lever reports on a cadre of Democratic Congressmen committed to opposing Biden’s goal of lowering more drug prices for people with Medicare. Not surprisingly, these policymakers happen to be the beneficiaries of lots of pharmaceutical industry money. What’s going on?

The Inflation Reduction Act includes provisions to allow Medicare to pay negotiated drug prices for ten drugs in 2026. It allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for an additional 150 drugs through 2034. President Biden wants to expand that number to 500 drugs, which would reduce Medicare spending on high-cost drugs and should also reduce people’s copays for those drugs.

Former President Trump, if reelected, appears interested in weakening Medicare drug-price negotiation. At one point during his presidency he said he supported drug price negotiation, but he has since backed down from that position.

Democrats Scott Petters of California, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, and Wiley Nickel of North Carolina are prepared to go against their president and fight some Medicare drug price negotiation as well. The pharmaceutical industry and other medical industry groups have contributed $300,000 to them in the last year. Gottheimer is considering a run for governor of New Jersey.

These Democrats are sponsoring legislation that claims to be defending research on orphan drugs, aping the drug industries’ common refrain that negotiated drug prices will compromise investment in research. It is interesting how negotiated drug prices around the world don’t appear to concern them or the fact that Americans are forced to pay three or four times as much as people in other wealthy countries for the same drugs.

Experts say that pharmaceutical companies will still rake in big profits on orphan drugs with negotiated prices, just not quite as big as they do now. Moreover, the Inflation Reduction Act exempts “orphan drugs” from Medicare price negotiations if they are treating only one rare disease. If Peters, Gottheimer and Nickel get their way, orphan drugs would be excluded from Medicare price negotiations even if they treat multiple rare conditions.

Here’s more from Just Care:

• Billions in Medicare savings from Medicare drug price negotiation by 2031
• Drug prices continue to be around three times higher in the US than other wealthy nations
• 2024: Medicare Part D coverage and costs
• Case study: Costco saves one couple hundreds of dollars over Medicare Part D
• Millions safely import low-cost drugs from abroad