Biden's Push to Make Some of the Most Expensive Prescription Drugs Cheaper

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🗓️ 29 August 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

On Tuesday, the Biden administration released a list of 10 medications that it's planning to negotiate prices for Medicare in an effort to bring down the costs of some of the most expensive drugs. It's part of a reform included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Many on the list are life-saving drugs that treat diabetes, cancer and other major health problems.|

The new prices that the federal government will eventually negotiate for these prescription drugs won't actually go into effect until 2026, and that's only if it doesn't get tied up in court with drugmakers. Six pharmaceutical companies who have filed lawsuits against the administration are calling these provisions unconstitutional.

Juana Summers speaks with NPR's pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin and Deepa Shivaram at the White House about the battle lines being drawn between the Biden Administration and pharmaceutical companies.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a battle brewing over the prices for the prescription drugs many seniors are taking.
0:13.3	It pits President Biden and the White House against big drug companies.
0:17.3	We're going to keep standing up to Big Farmer and we're not going to back down.
0:23.5	On Tuesday, the Biden administration released a list of 10 medications that it's planning
0:28.6	to negotiate prices for Medicare.
0:31.6	Many of these are life-saving drugs that treat diabetes, cancer, and other major health
0:36.9	problems.
0:38.2	Some names might be familiar to you from TV ads.
0:41.4	Elegues.
0:42.4	Elegues reduces...
0:43.4	Imagine the possibilities with still are.
0:45.7	Embryovica is a prescription medicine for...
0:48.0	Zoraltos significantly lowers the risk of stroke.
0:50.6	The 10 drugs cost Medicare $50 billion last year and consumers paid more than $3 billion
0:57.4	out of pocket for the drugs.
0:59.5	These are drugs that seniors rely on.
1:02.1	That is Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar.
1:05.5	She fought for the bargaining powers that Medicare will now wield against these drug makers.
1:11.6	These are the most profitable companies in the world.
1:15.2	The profit margins of the big drug companies are almost three times the average profit margin
1:20.8	of the other industries in this nation.
1:23.2	So people shouldn't let these big drug companies scare them.
	...

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