U.S. Supreme Court sides with consumers over Big Pharma
The pharmaceutical industry spent years fighting to overturn a 2022 law forcing drugmakers to negotiate Medicare drug prices with the federal government. Industry lawyers battled all the way to the Supreme Court and, fortunately for consumers, lost when the court declined to hear the case.
AARP described the outcome as a “victory for older Americans and their budgets.”
“AARP fought hard for this new law giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices because no American should ever have to choose between filling a prescription and paying for groceries, rent, or other basic necessities,” Bill Sweeney, AARP senior vice president of government affairs, said in a statement on the organization’s website.
As the PBS Newshour reported, the law requires the government to negotiate prices for certain high-cost drugs in the Medicare insurance program on an annual basis, with the first deals taking effect in 2026.
It also requires manufacturers to pay a rebate to Medicare if they raise a price by more than the general rate of inflation.
To date, the government has negotiated prices for 25 prescription drugs covered by Medicare, including the widely popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy.
The Trump administration recently announced drugs targeted for a third round of the program, which would bring the total number of drugs with lower prices for Medicare enrollees to 40.
Have you seen the cost of your prescription medications drop? Or is your experience just the opposite? Share your story with Voices for Affordable Health.
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