External reference drug pricing could save medicare tens of billions

A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that prices for brand-name prescription drugs averaged 3.2 to 4.1 times higher in the U.S. when compared with prices in the United Kingdom, Japan and the Canadian province of Ontario. The study also found that the longer the brand-name prescription drug was on the market, the greater the price differential.

If the Medicare program used the same prices as these other countries, the estimated savings to Medicare Part D would have been almost $73 billion in 2018 alone, the study found. Medicare Part D is an optional prescription drug benefit, available to Medicare beneficiaries for a premium and administered by private insurance companies.

The findings will be published in the May issue of Health Affairs.

U.S. prescription drug prices for brand-name drugs are the highest in the world. One approach to lower U.S. prescription drug prices is to benchmark drug prices to those paid in other countries using a pricing model known as external reference pricing. An estimated 29 European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and South Africa use this approach for the purposes of setting and negotiating the price of a drug.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190506160719.htm

Brand name drugs are hideously expensive here. I always tell the pharmacist to go with generics. Then the cost also depends in what tier your insurance company places the drug. If they cover it at all.

My mum’s Medicare part D is hellishly expensive too. Luckily she can afford it for now. Some older people simply cannot afford it and have to make a choice between medication and food. It’s revolting that this happens in a so called first world country

There is no difference between brand-name drugs and store-brands. That’s what I’ve always been told.
Pain-relief meds’ have the same ingredients.

In America, you could literally see people ecstatic on the day that a generic equivalent to a name-brand prescription drug came out, because they'd be saving so much money. It's fucked up.

Ben Reilly wrote:In America, you could literally see people ecstatic on the day that a generic equivalent to a name-brand prescription drug came out, because they'd be saving so much money. It's fucked up.

Incidentally, I recently heard that that just happened with Viagra. We'll see if the birth rate climbs.

The USA really has no hope of fighting back against corporation-manipulated and government-mandated faux--"free market" systems controlling their health, education, energy, transport, gun buying and financial sectors --  so long as those very same corporations 'own' and control the government..

Just have a look at those times when Democrat-led efforts to simply free up the financing of health insurance were derailed by concerted efforts by Big Pharma, Health Funds and the Repubs --  where their lobbying efforts had a large minority of Americans screaming that freeing up the health industry and lowering costs was somehow "UnAmerican" and "communistic" --  and was supposedly an attack on their personal rights to be ripped off..

What hope does the USA have of ever regulating the costs of medicines.  Let alone ever introducing a universal healthcare system available to everyone..

I've said it before, and I will say it again --  all of those industry lobbyists should be taken out the back and shot;  while big business should be banned outright from buying political parties...

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

The USA really has no hope of fighting back against corporation-manipulated and government-mandated faux--"free market" systems controlling their health, education, energy, transport, gun buying and financial sectors --  so long as those very same corporations 'own' and control the government..

Just have a look at those times when Democrat-led efforts to simply free up the financing of health insurance were derailed by concerted efforts by Big Pharma, Health Funds and the Repubs --  where their lobbying efforts had a large minority of Americans screaming that freeing up the health industry and lowering costs was somehow "UnAmerican" and "communistic" --  and was supposedly an attack on their personal rights to be ripped off..

What hope does the USA have of ever regulating the costs of medicines.  Let alone ever introducing a universal healthcare system available to everyone..

I've said it before, and I will say it again --  all of those industry lobbyists should be taken out the back and shot;  while big business should be banned outright from buying political parties...

+1 and a