Tag: Joe Biden

Want to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, not cut them? Vote Biden
Paul Krugman explains in a New York Times opinion piece why older adults and people with disabilities who support strengthening Medicare and Social Security need to vote in the upcoming presidential election: Medicare and Social Security are on the ballot. Only Joe Biden stands with them.

President Biden’s 2025 fiscal budget proposes to increase taxes to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. In stark contrast, former President Donald Trump has been calling for cuts to these programs. Krugman reminds us that Biden’s position is more in keeping with the public than Obama’s.

In the past, President Obama and some other Democrats have called for limiting Medicare and Social Security spending, without regard to its consequences. Limits to Medicare spending would mean higher health care costs for older adults and people with disabilities. Limits to Social Security spending would mean lower benefits down the road and less retirement income.

President Biden is proposing higher Social Security benefits and paying for them through higher corporate taxes. Wealthy individuals, who now contribute to Social Security for just a part of the year, unlike everyone else, and who don’t make Social Security contributions on capital gains income, would have to pay their “fair share.”

To strengthen Medicare, President Biden proposes that people with annual incomes above $400,000 would pay a slightly higher Medicare tax rate. Their Medicare tax rate on earned and unearned income would increase from 3.8 percent to 5 percent. A majority of voters have always supported raising taxes on the wealthy to strengthen Medicare and Social Security.

In stark contrast, here’s what Trump says: “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.” The Trump campaign insists that Trump did not actually mean “cutting.”

Here’s more from Just Care:
March 20, 2024
Biden brought down the price of insulin significantly; a Trump presidency could undo that
Drug prices remain out of control, and there’s a lot that President Biden could still do to bring them down. But, Americans should give President Joe Biden credit for reducing the cost of insulin significantly, a huge achievement for which he has not gotten the credit he is due, writes Jonathan Cohn for Huffington Post. If Trump is reelected, he could undo this.

In fact, President Biden is responsible for several new laws that are bringing down the cost of health care and making it a little more affordable. [Editor’s note: Not nearly enough, but far more than President Trump.]

With insulin, which millions of diabetics rely on for their well-being to process sugars in their bodies, the list price can be hundreds of dollars. That price is insane. People in other developed countries pay as little as 10 percent of the amount we pay for their insulin. Their governments negotiate the price of insulin and every other drug on their behalf.

About 25 percent of Americans with diabetes cannot afford insulin and other basic needs. In some cases, people forego insulin to the detriment of their health. They might not have health insurance and cannot afford the full cost of insulin. Fortunately, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, fewer Americans than ever are uninsured.

As of 2023, because of the Inflation Reduction Act, older adults and people with disabilities should pay no more than $35 a month for an insulin prescription. If they have two prescriptions, it would cost them $70. Since the government has not yet negotiated the price of insulin, it’s not clear how much more everyone with Part D prescription drug coverage is paying in premiums as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Unfortunately, reports are that some Part D drug plans have stopped covering insulin in response to the $35 maximum copay. If you have diabetes, make sure that your drug plan covers your insulin prescriptions.

As of January 1, 2024, people who do not have Medicare should also see lower insulin prices. The three major companies that manufacture insulin have reduced their prices to $35 a month voluntarily. One policy expert explains, however, that the price drop actually helps these companies maximize profits: “They’re lowering prices to avoid paying rebates to Medicaid programs and therefore maximize profits.”

If President Trump is reelected in November, watch out. His administration would likely undo President’s Biden important legislation on insulin prices. And, many of the 8.4 million Americans who rely on insulin would again be struggling to afford it or, worse still, forced to go without it.

Here’s more from Just Care:
January 16, 2024
President Biden drafts a package of health care reforms for his second term
President Joe Biden is assembling a package of health care reform proposals for his second term, including a proposal to bring down the price of prescription drugs, reports CNN. It’s a smart move given that health care affordability is the second most important issue for Americans, after inflation.

At the same time as President Biden looks to enhance people’s health care benefits, former President Donald Trump is calling to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Biden wants to keep federal subsidies for people receiving care through the ACA and do more to reduce drug prices for people with Medicare and all other Americans. Biden’s goals are modest given the state of health care in the US and we need to push him to call for affordable health care for all, but his goals are far better than Trump’s.

The ACA not only gives 10 million more Americans health insurance through the state health insurance exchanges, it expanded Medicaid to cover more Americans. People with incomes up to 135 percent of the federal poverty level are Medicaid-eligible. President Biden is looking into ways to ensure that the three and a half million people in the 10 states that opted against expanding Medicaid have Medicaid coverage.

President Biden is again calling for a public health insurance option. In theory, such an option could remove the private insurer middlemen and all the waste and increased costs they bring. But, it’s not at all clear, based on Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare (the public option) that a public health insurance option would bring down costs. The devil is in the design.

Right now, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees Medicare, is focused on bringing down the price of ten drugs that cost the Medicare program the most, as required by the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s both the camel’s nose under the tent for lower drug prices and small potatoes. The swiftest and easiest way to bring down drug prices is to allow people to import drugs from abroad and require insurers to cover those far less costly drugs.

The Inflation Reduction Act also penalizes drug companies for raising drug prices more than the rate of inflation. This measure should keep drug prices from going up at obscene rates. But, it is also small potatoes, given how high drug prices are in the US–often four times higher than in France.

Here’s more from Just Care:
December 6, 2023
Drug prices: Biden v. Trump
Heather Landi reports for Fierce Healthcare on how Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, and Joe Biden’s current Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, would address high drug prices. Not surprisingly, their views differ significantly.

Azar does not recognize that pharmaceutical companies in the US engage in price fixing. Or, that the pharmaceutical companies often delay the release of new drugs in order to maximize profits on older drugs, hampering innovation. Or, that it’s much easier for people in France to fill their prescriptions than people in the United States because out-of-pocket costs in the US are so high.

Azar does recognize the power of pharmacy benefit managers, PBMs, to drive up people’s out-of-pocket costs, but does not suggest a plan to fix that issue,. For example, he does not propose removing PBMs from the process of deciding which drugs are covered and at what price to patients.

Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA, giving Medicare drug price negotiating power for 10 drugs in 2025; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have chosent the 10 drugs, based on which cost the Medicare program the most. The IRA also capped out-of-pocket costs for each insulin product people with diabetes use at $35 a month. And, it imposed an out-of-pocket limit of $2,000 for drugs covered by Medicare Part D plans beginning in 2025.

President Joe Biden’s HHS Secretary Becerra touts Medicare’s drug price negotiation power as an effective way to lower drug costs, pointing out that the IRA now caps the cost of insulin at $35 per month for seniors who have Medicare.

Of note, the Trump administration had proposed that Part B drug prices–for inpatient drugs–be tied to prices paid abroad for these drugs. That sounds to me as if it would have been a smart move. But, the Biden administration rescinded that proposal, likely under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.

Here’s more from Just Care:
November 7, 2023
Senator Sanders wants a commitment from President Biden to lower drug prices
Senator Bernie Sanders is refusing to join with President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats to support the president’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health. The Washington Post reports that Sanders, who heads the Senate HELP committee, first wants a commitment from President Biden to lower drug prices.

We need “a very clear” government strategy on how to bring down prescription drug prices, says Sanders. Americans pay many times more than people in other countries for our drugs. And, not only is that insane, it is unconscionable. High drug prices are literally killing people, keeping them from taking heart and cancer medications they need to stay alive. High prices are also driving up federal health care spending.

As chair of the Senate HELP committee, Senator Sanders decides whether to confirm nominees for positions at the Department of Health and Human Services. He hopes to pressure the administration to establish a plan for lowering drug prices. He’s gotten media attention, but will he get Biden to act?

President Biden says he is concerned about the price of prescription drugs. He signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows Medicare to negotiate some drug prices. But, that’s only for people with Medicare and only covers a small number of drugs.

A recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that in the year between 2021 and 2022, the price of more than 1,200 medications rose more than 31 percent. The pharmaceutical industry blames Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs) for high drug prices. They are to blame, and so are pharmaceutical companies. PBMs pocket most of the savings they secure from bulk purchasing of drugs rather than using the savings to reduce drug costs appreciably. Pharmaceutical companies charge high prices.

Senator Sanders’ team just issued a report finding that even when taxpayer dollars go to funding pharmaceutical company research that leads to the development of new drugs, Americans pay a lot more than people in other countries for those drugs. Americans pay for those drugs to be developed and are then expected to pay again in spades for them when they need them.

Senator Sanders wants all drugs created with taxpayer dollars through the NIH to come with a “reasonable pricing clause.” He doesn’t spell out what that means. It should mean a price equal to if not lower than what any other wealthy country pays for those drugs. That’s only reasonable since we’ve paid for their development.

The easiest way to bring down prescription drug prices quickly is to open our borders to drug importation from verified pharmacies and require insurers to cover their cost. But, no one is yet calling for that. Sanders’ goal is to change government policy with regard to the pharmaceutical industry and demand that prescription drug costs in the US drop considerably. Good luck!

Here’s more from Just Care:
July 13, 2023
Biden’s Medicare plan: Retirement with dignity
In an op-ed for The New York Times, President Joe Biden vows he will not cut Medicare. Unlike his Republican “friends,” he recognizes that turning Medicare into a voucher program, does not strengthen Medicare but rather weakens and destroys it. President Biden’s budget is designed to keep Medicare strong through 2050, without cutting people’s health care benefits, so that Americans can retire with dignity.

Medicare is an earned benefit, for which Americans contribute all their working lives. There is no cap on Medicare payroll contributions as there is with Social Security contributions. The more money you earn, the more you pay in. This money funds the Medicare Part A Hospital Trust Fund, which is currently projected to take in less than it pays out in 2028.

President Biden appreciates that Medicare delivers good value and could deliver better value still. The Republicans’ voucher program would simply shift more health care costs onto older adults and people with disabilities with Medicare.

The Affordable Care Act strengthened Medicare, as did the Inflation Reduction Act, which finally gives Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices, penalizes pharmaceutical companies that raise prices faster than inflation and limits out-of-pocket drug costs if you have Medicare. All of these policies reduce the deficit by $159 billion.

Biden’s plan is to do more to lower drug prices for people with Medicare, giving more negotiating power to the federal government. He says it would save another $200 billion, which could then go towards strengthening the Medicare Trust Fund.

Biden also wants to increase people’s payroll contribution into Medicare 1.2 percent–from 3.8 percent to 5 percent–and to tax unearned income above $400,000 at that rate as well. Biden would put that money in the Medicare Trust Fund as well. Biden justifies the additional contributions for wealthy Americans because today the most wealthy one percent of Americans are five times wealthier than the 50 percent who are leas wealthy.

In sharp contrast, Republicans want to block Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices. They want to remove the $35 a month cap on the cost of insulin for people with Medicare. They want people to spend whatever it takes for their drugs or go without them, not to limit their costs to $2,000 a year as the Inflation Reduction Act does. They want Big Pharma to win.

Curiously, Biden does not propose a massive revision to the way the government pays Medicare Advantage plans, as a way to strengthen Medicare. The current Medicare Advantage payment methodology has cost Medicare more than $120 billion to date in overpayments and is projected to cost $600 billion dollars more in overpayments over the next eight years. Probably, Biden fears the health insurance industry’s weaponization of such a proposal to scare people in Medicare Advantage.

Thankfully, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Medicare, has already proposed a revision to the way it pays Medicare Advantage plans that will rein in some, though not enough, of their massive overpayments. Since it will mean lower profits, the insurance industry’s pushback has been fierce. Let’s hope the government’s proposal is finalized.

Here’s more from Just Care:
March 9, 2023
Republicans plan to cut Social Security, President Biden should release a plan to expand it
[This article was originally published in Common Dreams on February 8, 2023]

Last night, President Joe Biden called out Congressional Republicans for their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare. Several Republicans erupted in outrage, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) yelled “liar.” In response, Biden said “I enjoy conversion…as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” and urged the entire room to “stand up for seniors.” Many Republicans in the room, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, stood up and applauded.

This was a masterful moment of stagecraft from President Biden. But no one should mistake it for any real commitment from Republicans to back off their deeply held desire to cut Social Security and Medicare. Fortunately, Biden himself doesn’t appear to be making any such mistake.

After the speech, Biden tweeted “Look: I welcome all converts. But now, let’s see your budget.” Similarly, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday afternoon that McCarthy “says he wants cuts, where? He hasn’t named a single place where he wants them. Is it going to be Social Security or Medicare? Don’t just say no, prove it. Show us your plan.”

Biden and Schumer are right. Republicans have a long history of trying to cut Social Security and Medicare. Republican leaders keep saying — often to their donors behind closed doors — that they want to do it. Most recently, former Vice President Mike Pence told a closed door conference that he wants to “replace the New Deal with a better deal” by privatizing Social Security, handing our earned benefits over to Wall Street.

Pence was only the latest in a long line of Republicans with plans to cut Social Security and Medicare. Last year, the Republican Study Committee, which counts about 75 percent of House Republicans as members, released a budget that would raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare to 70, decimate middle class Social Security benefits, and voucherize Medicare. These are the very same House Republicans who erupted in outrage last night!

The story is no different in the Senate, where Senator John Thune (R-SD), the second highest ranking Republican in the Senate, has said that he wants to use the debt limit to force cuts to Social Security and other programs. Thune specifically endorsed raising the retirement age.

Thune’s colleagues have plans of their own. Last year, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) released a plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years. Scott recently compared spending on the programs to “alcoholism.” Not to be outdone, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) wants to turn Social Security and Medicare into discretionary spending, putting them in jeopardy every year, and says that Social Security was “set up improperly.”

Yet despite all these plans, Republicans realize that cutting Social Security and Medicare is incredibly unpopular, even with their own voters. That’s why, when Biden put them on the spot, they had no choice but to stand and applaud for protecting benefits. And it’s why they’re so desperate to go behind closed doors and force Democrats to cut benefits, so that the public can’t see which party’s fingerprints are on the cuts.

Two bills, the TRUST Act and the Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act, would do just that. Both of these bills would create fast-tracked commissions to cut Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors. They are designed to give politicians cover to enact unpopular benefit cuts and claim they had no choice.

The Biden Administration has rightfully called these bills “death panels” for Social Security and Medicare. Democrats must stand strong and refuse to go behind closed doors with Republicans. They must continue to make it clear, as Biden did last night, that only a clean increase in the debt limit with no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other program is acceptable.

Additionally, Democrats should follow the lead of Biden and Schumer by continuing to demand Republicans release their specific budget plan. Until Republicans release a budget that doesn’t cut a single penny from current or future Social Security and Medicare benefits, their claims that the programs are “off the table” are empty words. Furthermore, every member of Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — should take the pledge to never cut Social Security and Medicare under any circumstances.

Democrats should make it clear to the American people which party supports Social Security by holding a vote on expanding, never cutting, Social Security’s modest benefits. Democratic legislators have already authored several plans to do just that. President Biden ran on a similar plan. Now, he should release an official White House plan that expands Social Security with no cuts and requires the wealthiest to pay their fair share.

Then, Biden should challenge Republicans to release their own plan for Social Security and hold a vote. Let the American people see, in the light of day, the plan that each party has for the future of our earned benefits.

Here’s more from Just Care:
February 15, 2023
Manchin’s means-testing proposal builds back worse
President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation would bring the United States into the 21st century, finally enacting programs that other industrialized nations have had for a very long time. These include children’s allowances in the form of tax credits, paid family and medical leave, free post-secondary education, expanded Medicare, home and community-based services, and so much more.

If Manchin forces work requirements and intrusive, demeaning means tests, it will be substantially easier for Republicans to drown Biden’s legacy in the bathtub once they are back in control.

The bill would be among the most transformative in American history. It would cement Biden’s legacy alongside Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. But not if Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who claims that the bill would promote a so-called “entitlement society,” forces work requirements and means-testing.

Manchin’s demands for work requirements and means-testing would save money largely by making federal programs inaccessible to many who need them, including those who need them the most. Those most in need often have the most trouble navigating complicated and burdensome eligibility requirements, because they generally lack the necessary time, resources, and family support. Experience teaches that much of the money saved on benefits would be spent on wasteful and intrusive administration.

Moreover, limiting eligibility to a small group who must prove to the rest of us that they really deserve the benefits will make those programs far more politically vulnerable. Knowingly, the late Wilbur Cohen, known as the father of Social Security and Medicare, remarked, “a program that is only for the poor—one that has nothing in it for the middle income and the upper income—is, in the long run, a program the American public won’t support.” For all these reasons, Cohen understood, as he often succinctly phrased it, “Programs for the poor make poor programs.”

At first glance, Manchin’s demands for stringent means-testing and work requirements may seem like a responsible effort to target limited resources. But a close look at the history of social welfare policy reveals that the restrictions are the latest chapter in an ugly history of treating some as less deserving than others.

While our Declaration of Independence, as well as virtually every religion, asserts that all of us are created equal, that has not been the view of some of the most powerful among us. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, two of the richest men in human history, believed in what was called Social Darwinism, where some people are inherently worthier than others, due to “better” genes. They saw themselves as the fittest, and the poor as inherently unworthy and lazy people who needed their “betters” to push them to make something of their lives.

Throughout American history, some people, whether simply down on their luck or different from the majority, have been stereotyped as immoral, lazy, shiftless—in short, undeserving. Carnegie stated that “It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy.”

Nor is that simply the view of a few wealthy and powerful individuals. The notion that some people are undeserving is a strong undercurrent of conservative, anti-government thinking. It is embodied in government action and inaction whenever conservatives have their way.

This view demands hypersensitivity to ensure that those who receive government benefits do not take advantage of the rest of us. It insists that the only people worthy of government assistance are those can who surmount the obstacles government places in their way.

That attitude can be seen in the harsh, inhumane workhouses and poorhouses that used to be common features of life in Great Britain and the United States. These institutions have been described as “designed to punish people for their poverty and, hypothetically, make being poor so horrible that people would continue to work at all costs.” More succinctly, a nineteenth century activist against these institutions called them “prisons for the poor.”

The attitude can be seen in the nineteenth century debate over free public education. John Randolph, a wealthy Virginia slaveowner and politician, expressed his horror at the idea of universal free public education with words that echo sentiments one still hears today:

“Among the strange notions that have been broached since I have been on the political theatre, there is one which has lately seized the minds of men, that all things must be done for them by the government, and that they are to do nothing for themselves.”

In 1935, when President Roosevelt proposed the creation of Social Security, opponents made similar arguments. Despite the fact that Social Security is earned, the opponents still claimed it would create dependency. As part of their fearmongering, they employed a new frightening epithet as shorthand for all of their concerns. Social Security, its opponents claimed, was socialism.

Nor has that attitude disappeared. We see it in talk of “entitlements,” and “makers” and “takers,” as well as in claims that government spending creates dependency and that the Democratic agenda is socialist.

Democrats must resist the demands for work requirements and means-testing, if they truly want to build back better. They must resist the idea that government should only help the most destitute among us, not the working class or the middle class. In arguing for this more expansive help, they must remind those opposing them how much government has always helped the most advantaged among us.

Those who object to universal government help, who see themselves as having made it on their own, are often those who have been born with privilege, who benefit from government on a daily basis. They turn a blind eye to the highways, courts, police, military, and all the other public expenditures from which they disproportionately benefit.

In a 1938 radio address, President Roosevelt compellingly explained the reality that it is the wealthy who government has always benefited the most:

“The first to turn to Government, the first to receive protection from Government, were not the poor and the lowly—those who had no resources other than their daily earnings—but the rich and the strong. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the United States passed protective laws designed, in the main, to give security to property owners, to industrialists, to merchants and to bankers….Because it has become increasingly difficult for individuals to build their own security single-handed, Government must now step in and help them lay the foundation stones, just as Government in the past has helped lay the foundation of business and industry.”

FDR understood that government involves all of us coming together to protect each of us against risks over which we have no control. Democrats need to heed FDR’s words and pass a Build Back Better Act that reflects his view of the world: A view that work requirements are unnecessary in a world where good paying jobs are available to all. A view that universal programs that encourage work and prevent people from falling into poverty are far preferable to means-tested programs that are demeaning and trap those already in poverty.

The answer to concern that the wealthy will receive benefits they don’t need is to bring back a truly progressive income tax and a substantial estate tax. The problem is not the wealthy receiving the same benefits as the rest of us, but rather our dysfunctional tax system that absolves them of the responsibility to contribute their fair share towards the common good.

Our nation is highly polarized. But one issue that unites us is Social Security. Democrats, Republicans, and independents all support protecting and expanding benefits. That is because Social Security embodies Roosevelt’s world view and the understanding he learned from his devastating experience with polio.

FDR saw clearly that all of us face risks. He believed that government should help us address those risks together. He was physically dependent on others, and understood how demeaning it was to have to continually prove your need. He knew how crushing it is to the spirit to feel like a failure, unable to get by without help.

FDR understood that we are at our strongest when we recognize our common humanity. Having suffered from polio and succeeded in spite of it, he understood how important it was to design government programs to be uplifting.

Today’s Democrats should embrace Roosevelt’s insight. They ignore his wisdom at their peril. The right-wing activist Grover Norquist once expressed his desire to reduce government to “the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” If Manchin forces work requirements and intrusive, demeaning means tests, it will be substantially easier for Republicans to drown Biden’s legacy in the bathtub once they are back in control.

To resist that fate, Democrats must convince Manchin to build back better for everyone.

This post was originally published in Common Dreams

Here’s more from Just Care:
- Expand Social Security, don’t means test it
October 28, 2021
Biden calls for lower Medicare drug costs
President Joe Biden finally called on Congress to lower drug prices for people with Medicare and to cap their out-of-pocket drug costs, reports Rachel Cohrs and Lev Facher for Stat News. The President also said he wanted private insurers to be able to benefit from Medicare negotiated drug prices.

Mr. Biden recognizes that fair drug prices are critical to enable Americans to get the health care they need and should have no bearing on the development of new drugs. In a speech last week, he said: “We can make a distinction between developing these breakthroughs and jacking up prices on a range of medications for a range of everyday diseases and conditions.”

The White House released a new document on prescription drugs. However, it did not go into any details on how to set drug prices. It did not call for international reference pricing either. International reference pricing would ensure that Americans paid no more on average for their drugs than people in other wealthy countries.

That said, the document does support a provision in the House of Representatives 2019 bill, H.R. 3, which would allow compulsory licensing of drug patents in instances in which pharmaceutical companies were unwilling to negotiate a drug’s price. In effect, the government could give competing drug companies a license to manufacture the drugs.

In Biden’s words, “[Medicare negotiation] means drug companies would have to sell their drugs to all distributors at the Medicare price, or face up to a 95% excise tax.” He also supports imposing penalties on drug companies that raise their prices higher than the rate of inflation. And, he wants to allow states to import drugs from Canada. Why only Canada?

PhRMA responded in its typical way, even though there is no compelling evidence that lower drug prices would affect innovation. It’s time we heard a chorus of people drowning out PhRMA’s voice and calling out drug companies for charging such high prices that they effectively leave tens of thousands of Americans dead each year.

Mr. Biden actually did just that. When he was vice president and he was leading an effort to cure cancer, he told the pharmaceutical companies that it would be “unacceptable” for them to charge whatever they pleased for a cure. “That means a significant number of people can’t afford it, and they will die without it.”

Of course, as Mr. Biden said, Medicare drug price negotiation would still leave pharmaceutical companies with healthy profits. And, he was not prepared to call for price negotiation of generic drugs. Increasingly, many generic drugs have become extremely expensive.

Here’s more from Just Care:
August 18, 2021
Biden steps in on drug prices
David Dayen reports in the American Prospect on new developments at the White House regarding legislation that would lower prescription drug prices. President Joe Biden’s executive order on economic competition takes (baby) steps towards the federal government removing patents on excessively priced brand-name drugs so that other companies could manufacture them at lower cost. This threat to pharmaceutical company patents, in turn, could move Congress to take bold action on drug prices.

The potential for executive action on drug prices derives from legislation that gives the government “march-in rights,” to seize drug patents when drugs are developed with government funding and the drugs are not publicly available on “reasonable terms.” There has been a long debate over the meaning of “reasonable terms,” with the sponsors of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and others claiming that it somehow excludes excessive pricing. But, Kamala Harris in her campaign platform supported its use for this purpose.

Before Trump left office, his administration tried to kill any further discussion on the use of march-in rights to address high-priced drugs through NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Now, President Biden is asking NIST not to finalize Trump’s proposed new rule.

Right now, there is a request pending for the government to march-in and break the patent on the prostate cancer drug, Xtandi. Its price in the US is $150,000 for a year’s treatment and, with insurance, copays can easily be $10,000. Other wealthy countries sell it for as low as $30,000.

To date, the Department of Defense has not acted on the march-in request for Xtandi. President Biden’s intervention on the NIST rule might change that. Let us see.

In addition to requesting that NIST not finalize the Trump rule on march-in rights, President Biden’s executive order seeks:
1. The FTC to end pay-for-delay, which permits pharmaceutical companies holding patents on brand-name drugs to pay generic manufacturers to delay bringing competitor generic drugs to market.
2. Opens the door to drug imports from Canada. This sounds good, but, people can import drugs from Canada today without worry about FDA action. Americans should be able to import drugs from any country, not just Canada.
3. Directs Secretary Xavier Becerra at the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend how the US should proceed on drug prices. Becerra could support march-in rights as well as compulsory licensing. He could also propose that drugs for people with Medicare cost no more than they do in any other wealthy nation.
One thing’s clear: If Democrats want to keep control of the House in 2022, it would help a lot if they passed legislation to lower drug prices. The overwhelming majority of Americans support this report. If drug prices remain high, the odds of their winning will likely come way down.

Here’s more from Just Care:
July 21, 2021