U.S. moves closer to drug price regulation
Fate of Medicare drug price regulation, Part D reforms uncertain
Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration have moved closer to regulating the prices of some drugs purchased by Medicare, imposing an inflation cap on Medicare drug price increases, and restructuring the Medicare drug benefit to reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs.
Having achieved unanimous support in their Senate caucus on Medicare drug price regulation, a prerequisite to passing legislation using budget reconciliation procedures, Democrats face a daunting but not impossible set of challenges to enactment. These include overcoming procedural hurdles associated with the budget reconciliation process and corralling sufficient support in both the House of Representatives and Senate for tax and energy policies that would be included along with drug pricing. ...