Key Points
- President Joe Biden said the federal Medicare program should negotiate prices for at least 50 prescription drugs each year, up from the current target of 20 medicines.
- That proposal is one of several new health-care policy plans Biden will outline during his State of the Union address Thursday.
- But the fate of his new proposals will be in the hands of a divided Congress, making it highly uncertain whether they will pass into law.
Really feels like it should be based on % difference from average costs paid by other industrialized nations. I have no frame of reference for whether drugs 21-50 are high margin enough to merit the costs of hiring people to research and negotiate. I assume they are but then like why not 51? Why not 3000? Why not 15? I can’t follow the logic if we’re just saying numbers of drugs.