White House reveals plans to lower drug prices – seniors will benefit

White House reveals plans to lower drug prices – seniors will benefit

White House reveals plans to lower drug prices – seniors will benefit

Senior citizens often struggle with paying for medications as they advance in age. Increasing medical problems often mean taking multiple medications per day—and those drugs can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month, no small concern for seniors on a fixed income.

President Donald Trump, however, plans to provide some relief. The Trump White House laid out a new plan this week to decrease the cost of prescriptions that many seniors are taking — and they’re looking to hold federal agencies accountable.

The White House Plan
New Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Thursday that the administration seeks to answer two major questions:
How can we try to start flipping some of those incentives in the system geared towards higher prices?
How do we find pockets of our programs where we maybe don’t negotiate enough or have people negotiating on our behalf to get as good of a deal?

To answer those questions, Azar and other Trump officials are looking at the Food and Drug Administration, which handles drug identification and classification, and Medicaid/Medicare, which many seniors are relying on for medical care and prescriptions.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General, in 2016 drug misclassifications cost Medicaid over $1 billion of taxpayer funds between 2012 and 2016. The FDA, which decides what constitutes a brand-name vs. generic drug, may be incorrectly classifying up to 3% of drugs per year—and that classification is what determines how much Medicaid will pay and how much the senior buyer is stuck paying.

Azar says the Trump administration wants to institute an out-of-pocket price cap that will limit the amount that seniors will have to pay for their medication.

The policy, more broadly, seeks to save seniors money and it would likely garner bi-partisan support.

The Washington Post reports:

On Thursday, [Azar told reporters] that the president is “firmly committed” to advancing policies to bring down drug prices. “I am now less than two weeks on the job and have been working a great deal, let’s just say, on these issues already. We do think drug prices are too high,” he said, according to Bloomberg News.


Bringing Competition to the Drug Market

Part of the White House’s plan involves the 180-day exclusivity agreement that the FDA grants generic drugs.

Once the agreement is granted for a generic medication, the government cannot approve any similar drugs until the 180 days are past.

Azar says this leads to a lack of competition in the market—and the tendency for manufacturers to game the system to keep other generic competition out.

He says the White House wants to change the 180-day exclusivity period to start the day that the FDA approves a drug, instead of waiting until the company files for it.

“Right now,” says Azar, “some companies will just sit on that [filing] and just park it,” ensuring that the 180-day period never ends—and no other drugs get into the market.

The White House plans to explain its new plan in more detail next week when it releases the 2019 budget.


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