Don’t Believe the Hype

An ad’s charge that price haggling would ‘swipe $500 billion from Medicare’ is incorrect.

Much to pharmaceutical companies’ benefit, Medicare has been barred from negotiating for the lowest drug prices when paying for the Part D prescription drug benefit. This translates to unnecessarily higher costs for both beneficiaries and Medicare.  Yet, we’re hearing of misleading and outright false advertisements on TV and on YouTube, stating that insurance companies and Washington bureaucrats “are working together.

Contrary to what the advertisement is saying, that $500 billion number is not about what will be “swiped” from Medicare, but rather is an estimate of how much the government would save over 10 years if drug price negotiations outlined in H.R. 3 were enacted. That is, the government would be paying pharmaceutical companies $500 billion less for prescription drugs.