The Biden administration announced Tuesday that manufacturers of 10 expensive drugs have agreed to negotiate with the federal government to lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries.
Despite several pharmaceutical companies suing the government, the companies said they would begin talks with the government, arguing that the new law allowing them to negotiate sets a very high bar for negotiations. potential penalties If drug companies opt out, it’s unconstitutional.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the companies’ decision is “another major step in President Biden’s fight to lower health care costs for seniors and families.”
The drug pricing program was created last year when Congress passed the Inflation Control Act, and is a legislative accomplishment for Mr. Biden. Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, was previously prohibited by federal law from negotiating directly with drug companies. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the price negotiation program would save the government about $100 billion over 10 years.
Legal challenges to the law continue and could prevent lower prices from reaching consumers for months, if not years.
But Biden, in a video message posted to “This shows that there is,” he said.
He added, “For decades, American drug companies were making record profits while Big Pharma tried to block Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices.In fact, the United States is now doing exactly the same.” They pay two to three times more than people in other countries for the exact same prescription drugs manufactured by the company.”
If the drug negotiation provisions of the president-backed law survive legal challenges, they would be phased in over time.
The first items to be negotiated will be more than 10 drugs selected by the administration, including blood thinners Eliquis and Xarelto, and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia. The price reductions for these medicines are expected to take effect at the beginning of 2026. Other medicines will be negotiated over the next few years.
The first 10 companies to develop the selected drugs had a deadline of October 1 to indicate whether they would participate in negotiations, while the legal battle continues. Several of them had already said they would negotiate before the White House’s announcement.
Politically, Mr. Biden has used the law’s drug bargaining provisions as a way to demonstrate his willingness to fight big corporate interests on behalf of Americans suffering from high prices.
At an event in Maryland last month, the president touted his accomplishments.
“I have spent my career working with members of Congress to take on Big Pharma,” he said, noting that Big Pharma has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists trying to intimidate members of Congress. . “But guess what? It happened. Finally we won.”
The White House has also used the issue to highlight differences between Democrats and Republicans.
“There wasn’t a lone Republican that voted for this” in Maryland, Biden said. “And now they want to abolish it.”
