Biden Administration Initiatives to Rein in Drug Prices—Déjà vu All Over Again
On July 9, President Biden signed Executive Order 14063, designed to promote competition in the American economy with the goal of lowering prices for families, increasing wages for workers, and promoting innovation and even faster economic growth. The Order is expansive—requiring more than 12 federal agencies to pursue 72 initiatives. One of the Order’s prominent targets is drug pricing. At the signing ceremony, President Biden reiterated that “Americans pay two-and-a-half times more for prescription drugs than in any other leading country,” and “nearly one in four Americans struggles to afford their medication.” We have heard similar words multiple times before over many years, however, to date, there has been little progress.
The Order’s initiatives focusing on drug prices do not appear very different from similar efforts in recent years. First, the Order calls on the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) to create a plan within 45 days to combat “excessive pricing of prescription drugs and enhance domestic pharmaceutical supply chains, to reduce the prices paid by the federal government for such drugs, and to address the recurrent problem of price gouging.” While perhaps a good sound bite, this initiative is not new. In fact, it sounds similar to the Trump administration’s “Most Favored Nation” drug pricing initiative under which Medicare reimbursement for certain drugs would be based on lower prices in other countries. The call for a plan to be delivered in 45 days is curious since it is reported that HHS delivered a new, Biden administration, most favored nation drug pricing rule to the Office of Management Budget for review earlier last week. Perhaps the plan will address how the Biden administration can implement this policy and avoid being bogged down in litigation.
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