Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Drugmakers Seeking Some Relief On New Medicare Rules
The Wall Street Journal: Drugmakers Look To Limit Medicare’s New Power To Negotiate Lower Drug Prices
Drugmakers are trying to blunt Medicare’s newfound power to negotiate medicine prices while coping with internal industry disputes and ebbing influence in Washington, D.C. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress gave Medicare, the country’s biggest buyer of prescription drugs, the authority to negotiate how much it pays for certain high-price therapies, and to get rebates on treatments whose prices rise more than the rate of inflation. (Hopkins, 10/20)
Stat: Medicare Will Soon Cap Drug Spending. There’s No Limit For Hospital Bills
By 2025, people on Medicare who take expensive medications will feel significant financial relief: They will not have to pay more than $2,000 in a year for all of their drugs. But the 35 million people who are enrolled in the traditional Medicare program still won’t have that same relief anytime soon for their hospital, outpatient, home health, and nursing home care, leaving them exposed to potentially unlimited costs if they become seriously ill and don’t have supplemental coverage. (Herman, 10/21)
Meanwhile, Ohio and Kentucky make some changes to Medicaid, the federal-state programs for people with low-incomes —
Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Rolls Out Single Pharmacy Benefit Manager
Advocates say having a single pharmacy benefit manager will prevent millions of taxpayer dollars from being overcharged. The launch is arguably the most-watched recent reform to Medicaid, which provides government-funded health care for nearly 3 million low-income people ‒ or nearly 1 in 4 Ohioans. (Wu, 10/20)
AP: Kentucky Offers Expanded Medicaid Health Coverage For Adults
Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday extended Medicaid coverage for dental, vision and hearing care to hundreds of thousands of Kentucky adults, saying the sweeping initiative will remove some of the health-related obstacles keeping people from getting jobs. (Schreiner, 10/20)
