It's been two years since Joe made his proposal.
Yes, I know. You think these things can be done in a matter of weeks>
President Donald Trump rolled back a Biden administration executive order aimed at lowering prescription drug prices, including an effort to make more generic drugs available to Medicare patients for just $2 a prescription.
uk.finance.yahoo.com
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In response, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
proposed a handful of potential projects, one of which would have invited Medicare prescription drug plans to voluntarily offer a standardized list of frequently used generic drugs with a $2 co-pay, making costs easier to predict for doctors and patients. The idea was borrowed partly from large pharmacy chains such as Walmart, which offers customers a straightforward $4 drug list.
“A standardized list with consistent cost-sharing would allow providers to easily identify and prescribe appropriate medications without the worry of high prices for their patient or the stress of an unexpected prior authorization, step therapy, or quantity limit,” Department of Health and Human Services officials wrote in their report summarizing the proposal.
In December, health officials proposed a sample list of 101 drugs,
which they estimated would help patients save an average of about $57 a year, or 12% of their out-of-pocket costs. The individual savings were small because generics are typically inexpensive to begin with. But collectively, the list was projected to keep about $2 billion extra in seniors’ pockets a year.
The idea picked up some endorsements from major health industry groups. “Providing low, fixed copayments for common generic drugs, as CMS proposed, could help increase medication adherence and improve health outcomes,” the American Hospital Association wrote in an
official comment on the proposal.
However, it also ran into some opposition from generic drug makers, who argued the list would do relatively little to steer patients toward generics, both due to the slim cost savings and because it wouldn’t address the incentives that lead pharmacy benefit managers to nudge doctors and patients toward higher-priced brand name drugs."
So, the generic drug makers got angry at this, because they'd lose money, so no doubt they spent a lot of money bribing government people to try and stall it.
That's the US system, rich people don't like something, it takes much longer because of their opposition.
