Suchergebnisse

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Millions of individuals receive prescription drugs through federal programs. The increasing cost of prescription drugs has put pressure to control drug spending on federal programs such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), Medicare Part D, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and Medicaid. Prescription drug spending within the FEHBP in particular, which provides health and drug coverage to about 8 million federal employees, retirees, and their dependents, has been a significant contributor to FEHBP cost and premium growth. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which administers the FEHBP, predicted that prescription drugs would continue to be a primary driver of program costs in 2009. GAO was asked to describe approaches used by the FEHBP to control prescription drug spending and summarize approaches used by other federal programs. This testimony is based on prior GAO work, including Prescription Drugs: Oversight of Drug Pricing in Federal Programs (GAO-07-481T) and Prescription Drugs: An Overview of Approaches to Negotiate Drug Prices Used by Other Countries and U.S. Private Payers and Federal Programs (GAO-07-358T) and selected updates from relevant literature on drug spending controls prepared by other congressional and federal agencies."

"Serial no. 110-55." ; Shipping list no.: 2009-0092-P. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

"In Prescription for the People, Fran Quigley diagnoses our inability to get medicines to the people who need them and then prescribes the cure. He delivers a clear and convincing argument for a complete shift in the global and U.S. approach to developing and providing essential medicines -- and a primer on how to make that change happen."--

Introduction -- Why are prescription drugs so expensive? -- The truth behind the high costs of prescription drugs / Julie Appleby -- Higher education plays an important role in the pharma industry / Annie Waldman -- There's no immediate cure for high drug prices / Consumer Reports -- The real reason it takes so long to bring generics to market / Zachary Brennan -- There may be legitimate reasons why your drugs are so high / Michael Rosenblatt -- Why don't insurance companies cover all prescription drugs? -- Government-protected monopolies drive drug prices higher / Sydney Lupkin -- Your prescription meds may not be covered next year / Alison Kodjak -- Lowering drug prices may mean switching medications / Alison Kodjak -- Employers have the power to cut drug prices / Robert Galvin, MD, Roger Longman -- "Medically necessary" drugs are increasing prices / Marcelle Arak and Sheila Tschinkel

Shipping list no.: 2006-0127-P. ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; "Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs." ; Mode of access: Internet.

"Serial no. 111-72." ; Shipping list no. unavailable ; Includes bibliographical references ; Mode of access: Internet.

Policy discussions about the affordability of prescription drugs in the United States are infused with the theme that drug prices are unconscionably high. Many of the policy interventions proposed in Congress, the White House, and the states adopt this frame, authorizing regulatory action when prices exceed particular thresholds or otherwise constitute "price gouging" on the part of drug companies. Unsurprisingly, such initiatives have prompted legal challenges by the biopharmaceutical industry. State laws in particular are vulnerable to challenges on a number of grounds. In this Article, we focus on one avenue of challenge that has received little scholarly attention in the context of drug pricing: void-for-vagueness claims under the Due Process Clause. These challenges allege that the law's definition of "excessive" or "unconscionable" drug prices is so ambiguous as to fail basic requirements of procedural due process. To better understand how federal and state legislation can be designed to survive vagueness challenges, we review and extract lessons from four adjacent areas of law in which a standard of "excessive" or "unconscionable" price has been operationalized: (1) price gouging laws relating to times of emergency; (2) contract law; (3) consumer lending law; and (4) public utilities rate regulation. We analyze the approaches taken in each field and their potential applicability to the prescription drug context. We conclude that consumer lending law offers the most promising model, particularly if advanced via federal legislation, and offer a series of recommendations for drafting legislation aimed at identifying and curbing excessive drug prices.

Abstract
This article studies the pricing and advertising of prescription drugs in a duopoly market. If advertising is banned, decisions of the prescribing physician are price-sensitive. The emerging market equilibrium is characterized by marginal-cost pricing and normal profits. The introduction of advertising, and physician-oriented advertising (detailing) in particular, creates market power and asymmetric pricing and advertising behavior. In an equilibrium, one firm chooses maximum detailing and the rival firm invests less in physician-oriented advertising. The asymmetric detailing strategies explain the observed price differences in the market for prescription drugs. The model also predicts free-riding in DTC advertising. According to the predictions of the model, the free-rider is the firm with a low level of physician-oriented advertising. The firm with maximum detailing invests money in DTC advertising, expanding the market for prescription drugs.

POLICY POINTS: Spending on prescription drugs is much higher per capita in the United States than in most other industrialized nations, including France. Lower prescription drug spending in France is due to different approaches to managing drug prices, volume of prescribing, and global health budgets. Linking a drug's price to value both at the launch of the drug and over its lifetime is key to controlling spending. Regulations on prescription volume and global spending complement the interventions on prices. If the United States adopted the French approach to regulating drug pricing, Medicare could potentially save billions of dollars annually on prescription drug spending. CONTEXT: Prescription drug spending per capita in the United States is higher than in most other industrialized countries. Policymakers seeking to lower drug spending often suggest benchmarking prices against other countries, including France, which spends half as much as the United States per capita on prescription drugs. Because differences in drug prices may result from how markets are organized in each nation, we sought to directly compare drug prices and pricing regulations between the United States and France. METHODS: For the six brand‐name drugs with the highest gross expenditures in Medicare Part D in 2017, we compared the price dynamics in France and the United States between 2010 and 2018 and analyzed associations between price changes in each country and key regulatory events. We also comprehensively reviewed US and French laws and regulations related to drug pricing. FINDINGS: Prices for the six drugs studied were higher in the United States than in France. In 2018, if Medicare had paid French prices for the brand‐name drugs in our cohort, the agency would have saved $5.1 billion. We identified 12 factors that explain why the United States spends more than France on drugs, including variations in unit prices and the volume of prescriptions, driven by use of health technology assessment and value‐based pricing in France. ...