Government’s Price-fixing Racket Sacrifices New Medications for Senior Americans – By Bob Carlstrom (Real Clear Health) / July 17, 2023
The Inflation Reduction Act is threatening research and development for medications urgently needed to meet complex health challenges American seniors are enduring.
The new law – signed by President Biden last year without a single congressional Republican vote – contains a misleadingly labeled scheme known as the Drug Price Negotiation Program. It hands the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) free rein to force drug manufacturers into sham Medicare price “negotiations.”
As it turns out, “negotiation,” is a government euphemism for price-fixing.
Drug makers are compelled to negotiate prices for certain drugs selected by the government, otherwise they are subject to a tax which starts at 186% of a drug’s daily revenues (tens of millions of dollars in many cases) and escalates daily. And, of course, that scenario isn’t going to play out, because no company is going to subject itself to that kind of financial hemorrhaging. The process itself is more farcical theatrics than negotiation.
