‘Time To Act Is Now’: Report Recommends Government Actions To Lower Drug Costs
Negotiating Medicare drug pricing and withdrawing tax deductions for pharmaceutical ads are among the steps the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's report urges the federal government to take soon.
Los Angeles Times:
National Science Panel Calls For Aggressive Steps To Control Drug Prices
The U.S. must take urgent steps to rein in the out-of-control cost of prescription drugs, including aggressive government intervention to negotiate lower prices for American patients, a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended Thursday in a sweeping new report on pharmaceutical pricing. (Levey, 11/30)
NPR:
Report: Here's What The Feds Can Do To Cut Drug Prices
Drug prices are too high, and we had better do something about it. That is the nutshell conclusion of a 201-page report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. "High and increasing costs of prescription drugs coupled with the broader trends in overall medical expenditures, which now equals 18 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, are unsustainable to society as a whole," says Norman Augustine, the former CEO of defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the chair of the committee that conducted the study released Thursday. (Kodjak, 11/30)
Stat:
8 Ways To Lower Drug Prices, But National Academies Says 'the Time To Act Is Now'
If the U.S. wants to effectively combat high drug costs and make medicines affordable, the federal government needs to take several aggressive, if controversial steps, according to a sweeping and ambitious report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. ...“In the end, drugs that are not affordable are of little value and drugs that do not exist are of no value. … Each month of delay in implementing important reforms adds another month of hampered access to medicines,” the panel wrote in its report. “… The time to act is now.” (Silverman, 11/30)