U.S. News: White House Unveils Drug Plan

 "A Biden administration plan to lower prescription-drug prices offers the first detailed road map of administrative actions the White House would support in addition to legislation aimed at driving down costs.

The plan, which was released Thursday, backs legislation from congressional Democrats, including a push to empower the federal government to negotiate for drug prices in Medicare and pass those lower costs along to the private sector. The road map goes further, however, by outlining administrative actions by agencies and departments that could come in concert with possible legislative changes.

Administrative measures include testing reimbursement for drugs in Medicarebased on the clinical value they provide to patients and offering federal funding for researchinto new treatments, according to the plan viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Medicare is the health program for people aged 65 and older and younger people with disabilities.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said, "By promoting negotiation, competition, and innovation in the health-care industry, we will ensure cost fairness and protect access to care."

The plan doesn't say whether there would be any projected costs to taxpayers, or savings. 

Some options, such as creating a new agency within the National Institutes of Health to foster medical innovation, would require billions of dollars in funding. 

But most of the other measures, such as new models in Medicare that test paying for drugs based on their efficacy, could result in potentially significant savings, some analysts said.

The Biden administration's plan borrows heavily from ideas that have the support of Democrats. It also includes more conservative proposals such as promoting competition and price transparency, some analysts said.

"The Biden administration is trying to thread a political needle here by going aggressively after high drug prices while promoting research to blunt the pharmaceutical industry's argument that innovation will be harmed," said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The president called for the plan to include initiatives to combat high drug prices, beef up domestic pharmaceutical supply chains and address what the plan calls price gouging.

The 29-page plan is built around three broad principles: support for price negotiation with drug manufacturers and limits on drug-price increases; promotion of industry competition; and support for public and private research into new treatments, according to a copy of the report.

The plan, for example, says legislation could prohibit pharmaceutical companies from paying generic competitors to hold off on marketing their versions of brand-name drugs." [1]

This is also important for us, because most of the new drugs that reach Lithuania are developed in America.

1. U.S. News: White House Unveils Drug Plan
Armour, Stephanie.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 10 Sep 2021: A.3.