Biden Administration Unveils Plan to Lower Prescription Drug Prices

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra recently released a comprehensive plan to lower prescription drug prices.

The Drug Pricing Plan, part of a broader initiative from Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, is guided by HHS’ principles for equitable drug pricing reform through competition, innovation, and transparency.

One key policy in this effort is legislation that would allow the Becerra to negotiate Medicare Part B and Part D drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies and make those prices available to other purchasers.

Legislative and administrative actions will ultimately decrease prices paid by the federal government for prescription drugs, curb brand drug manufacturers’ abuse of patents to avoid competition, enhance domestic pharmaceutical supply chains, and address price gouging. 

Most importantly, the Drug Pricing Plan will boost patients’ access and adherence to treatments by lowering drug costs through increased competition throughout the healthcare system. 

“Life-saving prescription medication should not cost anyone their life savings. Yet too often, many low-income families cannot take their prescription medications because of cost concerns,” Becerra said in the announcement. 

“The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to making health care more affordable for American families, and this plan outlines one key way we will do that. By promoting negotiation, competition, and innovation in the health care industry, we will ensure cost fairness and protect access to care,” he continued.

Americans pay more than $1,500 per person for prescription drugs, a price notably higher than any comparable nation.

Many individuals forgo their medications because of cost, resulting in harm to their healthcare and health. Lack of competition is a key factor in these high drug costs, an HHS spokesperson explained. 

A May 2021 JAMA Network Open study found that out of 79 brand name drugs with available drug pricing data from 2015 to 2017, overall median out-of-pocket spending increased by 15 percent for commercially insured patients. 

Median list price increases were 16.7 percent. Specifically, per 30-day supply, drug prices increased from $333 in 2015 to $386 in 2017; at the same time, the median net price increase was 3.5 percent.

During the study period, net prices decreased for 21 drugs and increased for 58 drugs. And list prices increased for all but four drugs.

Following the Drug Pricing Plan announcement, PhRMA president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl issued an official statement explaining that he believes the plan is not serious in addressing what patients pay out of pocket for prescription drugs.

“What it leaves out is any attempt to fix a broken insurance system that discriminates against sick patients and does nothing to hold insurers and middlemen accountable for pocketing savings from our companies that should go to patients to lower their costs,” Ubl said in the statement.
 
“The biopharmaceutical industry is continuing to work around the clock against this pandemic while this same White House is trying to make it more difficult for our industry to continue the fight against this pandemic and plan for future health crises,” he concluded.