“In a potent reminder of the power of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the next round of prescription drugs that will be subject to Medicare price negotiation.  The 15 expensive, life-saving medications include Ozempic and Wegovy (for diabetes and weight loss), Trelegy (for COPD and asthma), Vraylar (for mental health disorders), and Otezla (for psoriatic arthritis and related conditions), among others. Medicare will now be able to negotiate down the exorbitant prices that Big Pharma charges for these drugs.

For a frame of reference, the current list price of Otezla is $5,000 per month; Wegovy, $1,400 per month, and Trelegy, $657 per month. Medicare patients on fixed incomes simply can’t afford these medications at their current prices.  The Inflation Reduction Act and its Medicare price negotiation program were intended to relieve the burden of exorbitant drug costs on our nation’s seniors. (At the beginning of this year, Big Pharma jacked up the prices of over 500 prescription medications, in keeping with a long tradition of price gouging.)

In the first cycle of negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act, HHS negotiated lower prices for 10 widely-used drugs among the Medicare population. Those prices will become effective starting January 1, 2026. According to HHS, ‘The new, lower prices range from 38 to 79 percent discounts off of list prices. In 2026, people with Medicare prescription drug coverage are expected to see aggregated estimated savings of $1.5 billion in their personal out-of-pocket costs’ and an estimated $6 billion to the taxpayers. 

Negotiations with participating drug companies for the 15 just-announced drugs will take place this year and go into effect in 2027.

We strongly urge the new Trump administration to continue the drug price negotiation process in good faith — and not attempt to undermine the true progress that the Biden administration made in bringing down the soaring cost of crucial medications for our nation’s seniors and other Medicare patients.  These vulnerable Americans, not the super-profitable, multi-billion pharmaceutical industry, must remain the priority until this country no longer pays the highest cost for prescription medications in the industrialized world.” – Max Richtman, President & CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

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Media Inquires:

Walter Gottlieb

[email protected]

www.ncpssm.org