Prescription Drugs

Recent drug shortages have received national attention as patients are forced to wait for vital treatments or substitute an alternative. As Congress searches for policy solutions, it is crucial that lawmakers understand the role that government price controls, specifically in Medicare, have played in the crisis. … Read more

President Barack Obama wants the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (“super committee”) to kill market competition for prescription drug coverage chosen by workers and retirees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).[1] In the President’s sparsely worded proposal, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency… Read more

Medicare is in crisis. Already generating tens of billions of dollars annually in deficits, its financial challenges threaten taxpayers and enrollees alike. Moving to a premium-support model would reverse the program’s deterioration by using the dynamics of the free market to contain costs and improve consumer satisfaction. … Read more

In the first hundred hours of the 110th Congress, the new Congressional leadership is expected to introduce legislation to fix the prices of prescription drugs in the massive Medicare drug entitlement program. The Medicare drug benefit is a costly entitlement, and its design, particularly the congressionally ordained gaps in coverage, has no analogue in the… Read more

The Senate will soon vote to decide whether Medicare should be driven by market competition and consumer choice or heavy-handed government regulation and broad restrictions on market access. The immediate debate is over striking the noninterference clause that prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from interfering with negotiations between drug manufacturers and private plans… Read more

The House of Representatives is poised to enact a confusing and contradictory Medicare drug policy. Under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is forbidden from interfering with private sector price negotiations for pharmaceuticals in Medicare Part D. With the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007 (H.R.… Read more

The Senate will soon debate Medicare drug price "negotiation," or repeal of the "non-interference" clause of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which prevents government interference in the negotiations between drug companies and the private plans that market drug benefits in Medicare. During the recent House debate on price negotiation, several Members cited the experience of… Read more

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's recent survey research, most Americans say they favor price controls on prescription drugs.[1] But the good news is that there is a rich professional literature on the history and the disastrous consequences of price controls.[2] As applied… Read more

Recent drug shortages have received national attention as patients are forced to wait for vital treatments or substitute an alternative. As Congress searches for policy solutions, it is crucial that lawmakers understand the role that government price controls, specifically in Medicare, have played in the crisis. … Read more

President Barack Obama wants the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (“super committee”) to kill market competition for prescription drug coverage chosen by workers and retirees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).[1] In the President’s sparsely worded proposal, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency… Read more

Medicare is in crisis. Already generating tens of billions of dollars annually in deficits, its financial challenges threaten taxpayers and enrollees alike. Moving to a premium-support model would reverse the program’s deterioration by using the dynamics of the free market to contain costs and improve consumer satisfaction. … Read more

The Senate will soon vote to decide whether Medicare should be driven by market competition and consumer choice or heavy-handed government regulation and broad restrictions on market access. The immediate debate is over striking the noninterference clause that prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from interfering with negotiations between drug manufacturers and private plans… Read more

The Senate will soon debate Medicare drug price "negotiation," or repeal of the "non-interference" clause of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which prevents government interference in the negotiations between drug companies and the private plans that market drug benefits in Medicare. During the recent House debate on price negotiation, several Members cited the experience of… Read more

The House of Representatives is poised to enact a confusing and contradictory Medicare drug policy. Under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is forbidden from interfering with private sector price negotiations for pharmaceuticals in Medicare Part D. With the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007 (H.R.… Read more

In the first hundred hours of the 110th Congress, the new Congressional leadership is expected to introduce legislation to fix the prices of prescription drugs in the massive Medicare drug entitlement program. The Medicare drug benefit is a costly entitlement, and its design, particularly the congressionally ordained gaps in coverage, has no analogue in the… Read more

Download PDF version The United States Senate may soon consider a measure that would strike an important provision of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act that restricts the government's ability to impose price controls on prescription drugs. While price controls guaranteeing cheap prescription drugs for everyone may sound appealing [1], the consequences of… Read more

Another year, another bill, and another amendment to legalize prescription drug importation. Importation's proponents are attempting once again to sneak it into law by amending annual, must-pass legislation. Their target this time is the Agriculture appropriations bill, but almost any bill could be game. Whatever means they use to try to pass… Read more