savings

I see a sea change coming on drug pricing from Trump 47 President Trump is famous for his fluidity on issues. He is unpredictable on healthcare and that is not more true than on drug price reform. At various points of Trump 45, the president was proposing radical drug price controls that had never been seen before from a Republican president. In the case of Medicare Part B, he proposed that providers negotiate prices for the physician-administered drugs as an international reference pricing scheme rolled out over time. What’s more, he wanted most favored nation (MFN) pricing, so the U.S. price would be pegged to the lowest price in the rest of the world. The proposal did not go anywhere because of major process issues, but at the time Trump said he would do the same in Medicare Part D, the retail drug program. Since leaving office and returning, Trump

Despite Republicans liking Medicare Advantage, major funding and structural changes could occur Some of you have written me asking why I am so convinced that the Trump administration and a GOP Congress will continue to target Medicare Advantage (MA) for savings. It is true that Donald Trump likes private healthcare and MA as a program. His healthcare nominees, including incoming Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is slated to be the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, favor the program. Trump and the GOP Congress could even opt for future Medicare beneficiaries to default to MA versus the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) program. They could offer some short-term relief in terms of MA rates and pull back on the misguided Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Part D out-of-pocket cap and cost-sharing changes. But many of the folks with influence over Trump