The Story: On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton rolled out a plan to lower prescription drug prices. The plan switches the debate from the Affordable Care Act and focuses more on middle class concerns surrounding the rising price of medications.
The plan switches the debate from the Affordable Care Act and focuses more on middle class concerns…
The Specifics
The plan includes several proposals, including requiring drug manufacturers to reinvest a set amount of their profits into research and development; capping monthly out-of- pocket spending for covered drugs to $250; reimporting drugs from other countries; and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. NACDS opposes the reimportation of prescription drugs because of concerns with the safety risks involved and the potential for reducing patient access to the professional services of their local pharmacists.
Clinton says her plan would save more than $100 billion over 10 years.
What else?
The unveiling of Clinton’s plan coincided with a controversial decision by Turing Pharmaceuticals to increase the cost of a drug that treats parasitic infections. Clinton’s fellow Democratic nominee, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, also has a prescription drug plan, which he revealed earlier this month, that includes proposals to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and resellers to import prescription drugs from Canada.
The Upshot
Nothing’s easy. According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 73 percent of Americans think prescription medications are too high—but only 53 percent believe that more regulation is the answer.
