Trump Administration Announces Historic Action to Lower Drug Prices for Americans

pawz · July 2020

LebamDawg said:
My epipen expired in 2017 but the pharmacist said it is good if the window is clear. I have two that cost me $600 - this might be good for anyone who has allergies.

Effing bugs...

I'm hearing one can be made with a YouTube video and $15 worth of supplies from Walgreens. Just what I'm hearing, don't twist.

Houhusky · July 2020

pawz said:

LebamDawg said:
My epipen expired in 2017 but the pharmacist said it is good if the window is clear. I have two that cost me $600 - this might be good for anyone who has allergies.

Effing bugs...
I'm hearing one can be made with a YouTube video and $15 worth of supplies from Walgreens. Just what I'm hearing, don't twist.

REAL advice is if you are actually paying $600+ per Epipen (or any other prescrip) make a vacation trip of it instead to some South American (Peru is great) or SE Asian country (Thailand) and stock up on the exact same thing for $20 and spend the savings on a nice hotel and a few hookers.

PurpleThrobber · July 2020

Houhusky said:

pawz said:

LebamDawg said:
My epipen expired in 2017 but the pharmacist said it is good if the window is clear. I have two that cost me $600 - this might be good for anyone who has allergies.

Effing bugs...
I'm hearing one can be made with a YouTube video and $15 worth of supplies from Walgreens. Just what I'm hearing, don't twist.
REAL advice is if you are actually paying $600+ per Epipen (or any other prescrip) make a vacation trip of it instead to some South American (Peru is great) or SE Asian country (Thailand) and stock up on the exact same thing for $20 and spend the savings on a nice hotel and a few hookers.

Or a crap hotel and a bunch of hookers.

Goduckies · July 2020

Can you being it in though? I know I can't bring certain drugs in from Mexico on cruises and they have searched me lol

Houhusky · July 2020

Goduckies said:
Can you being it in though? I know I can't bring certain drugs in from Mexico on cruises and they have searched me lol

A guy I know has brought in various antibiotics, contact lenses, prescrip anti-inflammatory creams, medical novocaine, inhalers, and anti-malaria Hydroxychloroquine who has never had a problem while flying. Cruises are much more strict.

Regardless, No one would ever look twice at an epipen.

Airports only care about weird shit, watched airport security completely bypass a bag full of antibiotics and zero in on a chocolate bar with just few coca leaves in it... 99% of the time they are really more concerned about people bringing in untaxed alcohol, tobacco, or contaminated fruits/animals. They DGAF about someone bringing in otherwise legal, non opiate, medications.

BennyBeaver · July 2020

DerekJohnson said:

MikeDamone said:
Of course this almost no airtime in the media.
NPR ran a story and in the first paragraph wrote that this would have minimal impact.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/24/895290378/trump-signs-executive-orders-on-drug-prices

The Trump administration has announced four executive orders to lower drug prices, but health policy experts say they will likely offer patients only minimal relief and may take months to implement, if they're implemented at all.

The orders signed Friday afternoon included allowing certain drugs to be imported from Canada and making changes to the way discounts negotiated by middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers are passed on to Medicare patients.

The most radical order involves requiring Medicare to pay the same price for some drugs — the ones patients receive in the hospital as part of Medicare Part B — that other countries pay. However, Trump said he is giving the pharmaceutical industry until Aug. 24 to make a deal with him before he implements it.

"We may not need to implement the fourth executive order, which is a very tough order," he said.

The administration did not send this executive order to reporters and it was not immediately clear whether the president signed it. Trump said he will be meeting with pharmaceutical executives on Tuesday.

Overall, the ideas embodied in the executive orders aren't new and aren't as meaningful as the White House lets on, says Ameet Sarpatwari, assistant director of Harvard Medical School's Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law.

"Clearly what this speaks of is a bit of desperation as to the president's sinking in the polls and needing to show that he is doing something about a campaign commitment from four years ago on which there hasn't really been much action," he tells NPR.

He says he wonders whether the administration will "slow walk" these executive orders after making a big deal of signing them. They could offer some relief but would likely take many months to implement.

And some have caveats that could stall them indefinitely.

For instance, one executive order involves passing on discounts negotiated by insurance middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers at the pharmacy counter — to Medicare patients. (These discounts typically go toward lowering premiums overall, instead.) However, this order includes a section that says that before it can take effect, the secretary of health and human services needs to confirm that the order won't cause federal spending, premiums or patients' total out-of-pocket costs to increase. Since one of these is bound to result from the executive order, it likely will never go into effect.

"This is the sound and the fury signifying nothing," Sarpatwari wrote in an email to NPR in response to a follow-up question about this caveat.

The prescription drug bill that stalled after passing in the House in December, called HR3, would have had a much larger impact, says Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University.

"The bottom line is that these orders will not make a meaningful difference for patients when it comes to what they pay out-of-pocket for their medications," Dusetzina writes in an email to NPR. "Some of them — particularly the International reference pricing — could lower what Medicare pays for drugs given in the doctor's office, but the reach is limited compared to HR3."

HR3 included reforms to Medicare Part D, which covers drugs available at the pharmacy, and measures to prevent drug companies from raising prices higher than inflation.

"We shouldn't be giving the administration credit for now moving three and a half years into the game when we could have actually had policies that would have been implemented and would have resulted in more Americans being able to access the drugs now," Sarpatwari says.

Still, that executive order regarding tying drug prices to those in other countries has already drawn criticism from the trade group PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

"The administration's proposal today is a reckless distraction that impedes our ability to respond to the current pandemic — and those we could face in the future," PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl said in a written statement, adding that his industry has been working hard in its COVID-19 efforts. "It jeopardizes American leadership that rewards risk-taking and innovation and threatens the hope of patients who need better treatments and cures."

The executive orders have also been received with mixed reactions from members of Congress. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, applauded the president for taking action, though he noted that the executive orders include proposals he has "expressed concern" about in the past. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, accused the president of recycling old proposals and delaying action "to appease his pals at Big Pharma."