Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Today, our topic is prescription drugs, what's happening to bring down costs this year and beyond.

I speak to Mark Miller, the executive vice president of healthcare at Arnold Ventures,

a philanthropy that supports researchers and advocates working on the pricing of prescription drugs.

Let's listen.

Mark Miller, welcome to public health on call.

It's great to talk about an issue that is really important to a lot of Americans,

and I know has been important to you, prescription drug pricing.

How many years would you say you have worked on this challenge?

Over 20 years?

I mean, I've been at this for 35 years and I can't rule out that I may have done

something longer than 20 years ago, but I just don't remember. Americans pay the highest

prescription drug prices. What has kept you going all these years working on this topic?

I have a portfolio here at the Arnold Ventures, which is a philanthropy.

And my portfolio here is the cost of healthcare.

And by that, I mean the cost to the household, to the employer, and to the taxpayer.

The three people who in the end pay for all health care.

Drugs is an important component of that and has been in the Medicare program, which the IRA

legislation addressed, I mean, it's one of the few places where the manufacturer, the provider,

...