Democrats Fine-Tuning Drug Pricing Reform Plan

Democrats in the US Senate are working out the finer details of their drug pricing reform legislation as the September deadline looms large. This is despite claims from the White House last year that the it was unlikely the party would mend the split between more right-leaning Dems like Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and moderate to liberal-leaning members like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. There are significant differences from the current version and one from last fall.

According to Rachel Cohrs, “The first is that the package would mandate Medicare negotiate drug prices, even if there’s an official in charge of Medicare that doesn’t support negotiation — as would likely be the case under a Republican president. It’s unclear at this point exactly how this mechanism works. The original proposal capped the number of drugs that Medicare could negotiate per year, but didn’t specify any minimum number.”

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(Source: Stat News, June 30th, 2022)