The discounts, agreed to after months of negotiations with drug manufacturers, range between 38% and 79% on the medication’s list price, which is the cost of medication before discounts or rebates are applied — not the price people actually pay for prescriptions.
Medicare spent $50 billion covering the drugs last year and taxpayers are expected to save $6 billion on the new prices, which do not go into effect until 2026. Older adults could save as much as $1.5 billion in total on their medications in out-of-pocket costs. Administration officials released few details about how they arrived at those calculations.
The newly negotiated prices will impact the price of drugs used by millions of older Americans to help manage diabetes, blood cancers and prevent heart failure or blood clots. The drugs include the blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
Absolutely insane.
Imagine if we had Medicare for all (and the leverage that came with).
My knowledge of Medicare is exactly why I advocate for Medicare For All all the time! This kind of negotiation is new for prescription drugs, but Medicare has long negotiated lower prices for medical services. Doctors and hospitals can choose not to participate in Medicare, but most stick with Medicare because the massive pool of high-utilization patients is hard to pass up, even at lower prices.
Not just that, imagine an additional billion and change circulating in local economies instead of that amount being siphoned out annually. It’s insane that they passed a law preventing this from happening for twenty years and we’re seeing this benefit because it expired
Small clarification, but we’re seeing it because democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which I will note that not a single republican voted for.
Yes, that is the act that empowered Medicare to begin negotiating prices but the Medicare Modernization Act, passed in 2003, barred it from negotiating prices
for twenty years. The MMA expired last year, lifting the ban.I am incorrect, see @Midnitte’s comment below
The MMA didn’t expire, it was overwritten by the Inflation act:
Ah, thank you for correcting me
Imagine a system more concerned about healthcare and not itemization of billable services.
Like if the government had a financial stake in your health, instead of a companies financial incentive to make sure you don’t receive care?