Biden Attempts To Lower Prices On Prescription Drugs

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

(TheRedWire.com) – On Wednesday President Joe Biden announced that he would be fining drugmakers who increased the prices of some medications at a rate higher than the inflation rate for people who are on Medicare. This move is going to help lower people’s coinsurance payments.

Biden during his speech in Las Vegas stated that this move to change the pricing of drugs was not just about health but also about “dignity,” and “security.” He added that his administration was keenly focused on ensuring that as many people as possible were able to afford healthcare which would also mean lowering the cost of prescription medication.

On Tuesday night administration officials also previewed the actions that Biden and the healthcare team had prepared in order to lower the price of the medication. Last year, Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act which included a provision that would allow the government to punish companies for increasing the cost of drugs at a rate higher than the inflation rate.

Biden continued by saying that he was not against companies making “reasonable profits” but that they should not be allowed to do so “on the backs of working families and seniors.”

From next month, some Medicare beneficiaries are going to see a decrease in out-of-pocket prices for 27 prescription drugs that had their prices rise during the last quarter of 2022 due to the inflation rate. Companies that violated the provision set in the Inflation Reduction Act are going to need to pay a rebate to cover the difference caused by the higher pricing.

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