PM Live Smart Thinking Blog: The Holy Grail of Healthcare Pricing

Healthcare pricing reform has been a goal for patients and politicians for decades, but a provision in a 2003 Medicare overhaul prohibited the US federal government from negotiating prices with pharma companies. In the latest Smart Thinking Blog, Rohit Khanna of Catalytic Health describes how the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug pricing negotiation provision is, and isn’t, the holy grail of healthcare pricing reform.

According to Khanna, “First of all, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 requires the government to negotiate the prices of only some drugs and not all of them. Those drugs are the ones covered under Medicare Part B (physician-delivered drugs) and Medicare Part D (retail or self-administered prescription drugs). The Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary selects drugs to be negotiated from a list of 50 ‘negotiation-eligible’ drugs with the highest total Medicare Part D spending and 50 ‘negotiation-eligible’ drugs with the highest total Medicare Part B spending.”

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(Source: PM Live, October 4^th, 2022)