U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., Thursday, December 14, 2023.
Chris Kleponis | Bloomberg |
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will impose inflation tariffs on 64 prescription drugs in the third quarter of this year to reduce costs for certain older Americans enrolled in Medicare.
President Joe Biden has made lowering drug prices in the United States a central part of his health care agenda and his 2024 re-election campaign. A provision of Biden's anti-inflation bill requires drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare, the government health care program for Americans over 65, if they raise the price of a drug faster than the rate of inflation.
This is unrelated to another provision of the law that allows Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs with manufacturers. According to the Biden administration, Americans pay on average two to three times more for prescription drugs than patients in other developed countries.
Some patients will pay a lower deductible for the period July 1 through Sept. 30 for the 64 drugs covered by Wednesday's announcement that are covered by Medicare Part B “because each pharmaceutical company has raised its prices faster than the rate of inflation,” a government news release said.
Some Medicare Part B patients can save up to $4,593 per day by taking these drugs during the quarter, the press release added.
More than 750,000 Medicare patients take these drugs each year, the statement said. The drugs treat diseases such as cancer, certain infections and a bone disease called osteoporosis.
The list includes Bristol Myers Squibb Abecma, a cell therapy for multiple myeloma; and Pfizer's Adectris, a targeted cancer drug for certain lymphomas. They also include Padcev from Astellas Pharma and Pfizer, a targeted cancer drug for advanced bladder cancer.
The Biden administration said the price of Padcev has risen faster than inflation every quarter since the Medicare inflation rebate program took effect last year.
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“Without the Inflation Reduction Act, seniors were completely at the mercy of drug companies' price increases. Not anymore,” said Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, in the press release.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to send drug manufacturers their first bills for rebates under the program in 2025.
In December, Biden released a list of 48 prescription drugs that would be subject to an inflation surcharge in the first quarter of 2024.
