Dive Brief:
- The Prescription Drug Affordability Act of 2015, set to be introduced Thursday, would enable Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices, as well as enable U.S. consumers to import lower-priced drugs from Canada and require transparency from drug companies on what they charge in other countries.
- Currently, Medicare is specifically barred from drug negotiations and private plans handle such affairs under Medicare Part D.
- The concept has been around for some time and appears popular, but questions remain as to how much it would actually help.
Dive Insight:
The bill, from Vermont senator and U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, is unlikely to be controversial, experts say. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 83% of Americans in support of the policy, following a year in which U.S. drug spending saw its highest increase in a decade.
“When a huge majority of the American people want us to take action, when 74% of Republicans and 93% of Democrats want the federal government to negotiate with the drug companies to lower prices, the time has come to say ‘enough is enough,’” Sanders is quoted by the National Journal.
However, savings may be difficult to project.
The Congressional Budget Office has not offered estimates on expected savings from government drug negotiations because proposals written so far have lacked specific enough information, according to Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.