Most people don’t realize this, but Australia, which winters ahead of the United States, has its worst flu season in five years. The US flu season doesn’t always follow in Australia’s footsteps, but it’s often a very strong indicator of what’s to come. Historical evidence is why public health experts are already urging everyone over the age of six months to get their annual flu shot.
My point is that, given what we’ve seen in the last two years with the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with what could be a record flu season, most of us are optimistic about preventing the flu. I think I agree that is very important. A strong American pharmaceutical industry.
For a long time, we have taken it for granted that we live in one of the most innovative countries in the world when it comes to medicine. This is demonstrated by the fact that Americans have access to nearly 90% of the treatments and vaccines on the market. Unfortunately, much of Congress has chosen to ignore the past few years, instead blaming “big pharma” as the only reason so many American patients can’t buy drugs at pharmacies. I keep blaming.
Case and point: Passing Medicare price controls as part of the Inflation Reduction Act just a few months ago.
Senators here in Nevada tout Medicare price controls as a big boon to patients’ wallets, but conveniently neglect two very important facts unique to the law.
First, price controls lead to fewer new medicines and treatments being developed for patients. Inconvenient for some, the reality is that discovering new drugs is expensive. Regardless of the size of a drug company, losing its ability to recoup its investment means significantly less money going into research and development, and fewer new drugs.
Second, and perhaps the most egregious part of this whole debacle, the law would force insurance companies and supply chain intermediaries (known as pharmacy benefits managers) to face a surge in deductibles and copayments, In some cases, centralized patient compensation. Essentially, PBMs are corporate actors, operating behind the scenes in the healthcare system, determining which medicines patients have access to and how much they pay in pharmacies.
Worse, the way these intermediaries pad their profits is by negotiating big discounts with drug companies based on the drug’s list price, and instead of handing it off to the patient, they charge full price and pocket the difference. to put in. It sounds too criminal to be legal, but this happens all the time here in Nevada.
After all, if the end goal is to actually help as many patients as possible, Washington leaders need to be transparent about the long-term implications of Medicare pricing. Longer-term consideration should be given to greater transparency regarding benefits administrators at companies and pharmacies.
James Lamb is Vice President of the Nevada Biotechnology and Health Science Consortium.
