Article archive / September 2020
Originally published: . Volume 11, No. 9. Source pages: 6.
Executive Order to Eliminate Kickbacks and Middlemen Aims to Lower Prices for Patients
In late July Pres. Trump issued an executive order lowering the prices for drugs by eliminating middlemen who currently benefit from rebates and kickbacks.
According to the announcement, "One of the reasons pharmaceutical drug prices in the United States are so high is because of the complex mix of payers and negotiators that often separates the consumer from the manufacturer in the drug-purchasing process. The result is that the prices patients see at the point-of-sale do not reflect the prices that the patient’s insurance companies, and middlemen hired by the insurance companies, actually pay for drugs."
In the executive order, the president said that these middlemen to receive "… rebates are the
functional equivalent of kickbacks, and erode savings that could otherwise go to the Medicare patients taking those drugs."
And, he wrote, "Fixing this problem could save Medicare patients billions of dollars. The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services has found that patients in the catastrophic phase of the Medicare Part D program saw their out-of-pocket costs for high-price drugs increase by 47 percent from 2010 to 2015…"
With this new announcement, it is now the policy that discounts offered on prescription drugs should be passed on to patients, he said.
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