Reducing Patient Access to New Medications Is the Left's Latest Medicare Price-Fixing Scheme

In each year the drugs selected would be ranked for "Negotiation" and government price setting according to how much Medicare spends on them.

The Senate draft is just the latest iteration of an old policy: replacing private sector negotiations with price controls for prescription drugs.

Last year's failed House version, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, also would have imposed government price controls on "High spending" Medicare drugs.

According to a major 2016 Progressive Policy Institute study, between 2006 and 2014 alone, Medicare beneficiaries' access to drugs reduced other patient health costs and secured a net program savings of $679.3 billion.

There is a rich professional literature on the negative impact of price regulation on economic innovation and production, including price controls on drugs.

We know how this price control policy "Works." The Department of Veterans Affairs health program imposes drug price controls and a restrictive formulary that denies patient access to many drugs, including new medications, that are routinely covered by Medicare.

There is no reason why members of Congress cannot craft a set of reforms that can improve the Medicare prescription drug program and directly benefit Medicare patients without resorting to a policy prescription that has been proven, time and time again, to be an epic failure.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/07/21/reducing-patient-access-to-new-medications-is-the-lefts-latest-medicare-price-fixing-scheme/