Ban on negotiating Medicare drug prices under pressure
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donna Weiner looks at Medicare’s prescription drug program from two different points of view.
As a participant, she wants to pay less for her medicines, which cost her about $6,000 a year. As a retired accountant who spent 50 years handling the books for companies, she sees a way to get there.
“You know from working in a business that it makes no sense for an administrator of a plan or a company not to be involved in what they have to pay out,” said Weiner, who lives near Orlando, Florida. For Medicare “to negotiate those prices down would be thousands of dollars back in my pocket every year,” she said.
Negotiating Medicare drug prices is the linchpin of President Joe Biden's ambitious health care agenda. Not only would consumers see lower costs, but savings would be plowed into other priorities such as dental coverage for retirees and lower premiums for people with plans under the Obama-era health law.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ban-on-negotiating-medicare-drug-prices-under-pressure/ar-AAPcUT9
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and everybody knows it. The VA negotiates. They're not as big as Medicare, of course, but the principle applies.
Repubs complain that we don't "run the government like a business." I don't know of any business that would sign up for anything without negotiating something as important as prices.
Repubs (and some Dems) forced this into the original bill. It should be scrapped.
