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Louisiana considers radical step to counter high drug prices: Federal intervention
Source: Washington Post
Louisiana considers radical step to counter high drug prices: Federal intervention
By Carolyn Y. Johnson July 3 at 6:53 PM
BATON ROUGE — In this city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, Rebekah Gee, Louisiana’s health secretary, presides over what she calls the “public-health-crisis cradle” of America. Poverty and poor health collide here to produce some of the nation’s worst rates of obesity, premature birth and other maladies.
Those problems are deep-rooted and hard to solve. The easy one, at least in theory, is hepatitis C, a liver-damaging virus frequently contracted by injection-drug users that can cause cirrhosis and cancer.
A handful of powerful new medicines offer high cure rates and few side effects. But because the drugs also launched with staggering list prices — as much as $94,500 for a 12-week course of treatment — Louisiana and other states have decided to ration care to Medicaid patients, waiting for people to get severe liver damage before providing access to the medicine.
Now, Gee is considering a radical move to get treatment to the thousands of Louisiana residents who need it but are not sick enough to qualify — asking the federal government to step in to drive prices down, perhaps by overriding the patent protections drug companies hold over the medicines.
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By Carolyn Y. Johnson July 3 at 6:53 PM
BATON ROUGE — In this city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, Rebekah Gee, Louisiana’s health secretary, presides over what she calls the “public-health-crisis cradle” of America. Poverty and poor health collide here to produce some of the nation’s worst rates of obesity, premature birth and other maladies.
Those problems are deep-rooted and hard to solve. The easy one, at least in theory, is hepatitis C, a liver-damaging virus frequently contracted by injection-drug users that can cause cirrhosis and cancer.
A handful of powerful new medicines offer high cure rates and few side effects. But because the drugs also launched with staggering list prices — as much as $94,500 for a 12-week course of treatment — Louisiana and other states have decided to ration care to Medicaid patients, waiting for people to get severe liver damage before providing access to the medicine.
Now, Gee is considering a radical move to get treatment to the thousands of Louisiana residents who need it but are not sick enough to qualify — asking the federal government to step in to drive prices down, perhaps by overriding the patent protections drug companies hold over the medicines.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/louisiana-considers-radical-step-to-counter-high-drug-prices-federal-intervention/2017/07/03/456b99f6-4a59-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html
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