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“No choice at all”: Pharma companies begrudgingly agree to negotiate prices

26 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

throwawaymanbot 3y ago
[dead]
Spivak 3y ago
I... actually agree with the drug companies here? Crazy. It is genuinely difficult to be worse than pharmaceutical companies but gotta hand it to Schumer for somehow finding a system that's worse than if they had gone full command economy and just forcibly set drug prices. At least then the incentives would be aligned so that you might as well take medicare patients. Good lord how did any of this pass the sniff test? You must "negotiate" with us and if we low-ball you and you refuse we'll just tax 65-95% of the price.
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  This isn’t how I understand it. If companies refuse to negotiate they either can accept those excise taxes or they will not be drugs that are covered by Medicare. They can refuse to negotiate and they can refuse to pay the excise tax. They just can’t do that and maintain access to one of their largest markets, which happens to be the group demanding the negotiation. Seems… complicated but fair?
datavirtue 3y ago
They're eventually going to reach the happy medium that other industries have where the government funds research and is the first privileged customer and they are allowed to use the IP to profit in the public market.
RevEng 3y ago
This is how it already works for major insurance groups around the world. The UK and Canadian national health care systems negotiate prices for all kinds of products and services, including drugs. The fact that pharmaceutical companies can arbitrarily raise prices and people are forced to pay them to live is a failing of an economy, even in a free market economy. It's the ultimate extortion - pay us whatever we want or you don't get to live. And no, that's not hyperbole - many of these medications are the difference between life and death for people using them. Many of these same medications were introduced decades ago at reasonable cost, but greed knows no bounds, so companies keep raising prices. For one egregious example, look at the narcolepsy drug Xyrem, which was created in the 1800s, used widely, eventually regulated and orphaned, them bought up by Jazz Pharmaceuticals who has jacked the price by an order of magnitude and fully admits that it will continue to raise it so long as governments and insurers don't fight back. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-sleeping-drug-company-increased-prices-300-without-anyone-noticing/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-sleeping-drug-company-inc...

26 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

[dead]

I... actually agree with the drug companies here? Crazy. It is genuinely difficult to be worse than pharmaceutical companies but gotta hand it to Schumer for somehow finding a system that's worse than if they had gone full command economy and just forcibly set drug prices. At least then the incentives would be aligned so that you might as well take medicare patients. Good lord how did any of this pass the sniff test? You must "negotiate" with us and if we low-ball you and you refuse we'll just tax 65-95% of the price.

edmundsauto 3y ago
This isn’t how I understand it. If companies refuse to negotiate they either can accept those excise taxes or they will not be drugs that are covered by Medicare. They can refuse to negotiate and they can refuse to pay the excise tax. They just can’t do that and maintain access to one of their largest markets, which happens to be the group demanding the negotiation. Seems… complicated but fair?

datavirtue 3y ago

They're eventually going to reach the happy medium that other industries have where the government funds research and is the first privileged customer and they are allowed to use the IP to profit in the public market.

RevEng 3y ago

This is how it already works for major insurance groups around the world. The UK and Canadian national health care systems negotiate prices for all kinds of products and services, including drugs. The fact that pharmaceutical companies can arbitrarily raise prices and people are forced to pay them to live is a failing of an economy, even in a free market economy. It's the ultimate extortion - pay us whatever we want or you don't get to live. And no, that's not hyperbole - many of these medications are the difference between life and death for people using them. Many of these same medications were introduced decades ago at reasonable cost, but greed knows no bounds, so companies keep raising prices. For one egregious example, look at the narcolepsy drug Xyrem, which was created in the 1800s, used widely, eventually regulated and orphaned, them bought up by Jazz Pharmaceuticals who has jacked the price by an order of magnitude and fully admits that it will continue to raise it so long as governments and insurers don't fight back. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-sleeping-drug-company-increased-prices-300-without-anyone-noticing/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-sleeping-drug-company-inc...