jueves, 2 de enero de 2020

Congress is gridlocked on drug pricing. States, not so much

The Readout
Damian Garde

Congress is gridlocked on drug pricing. States, not so much

The end of 2019 saw the seemingly bipartisan issue of rising drug costs fall victim to congressional infighting. But where federal legislators have run into roadblocks, individual states are poised to test out some novel ideas that could change how medicine is paid for in the U.S.

As STAT’s Nicholas Florko reports, Louisiana and Washington are pushing forward with their so-called Netflix model for treating hepatitis C, one in which they’d pay drug makers a subscription fee for unlimited doses of curative drugs. A handful of states have enacted laws that could significantly rein in pharma’s oft-derided middlemen, and a few are trying to cap the cost of insulin.

Each experiment is reaching into uncharted territory, and it remains to be seen whether the most ambitious state proposals can make a difference for patients. But each presents a chance for the laboratories of democracy to succeed where national lawmakers have stalled.

Read more.

No hay comentarios: