A top Biden administration official planning Medicare's first drug-price negotiations is talking directly with pharma executives and consulting with other agencies that buy medications for the government to begin hammering out details of the new policy.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure didn't name which chief executive officers she's met with but said the conversations have been collaborative. Her comments contrast with the drug industry's confrontational public stance against the policy.
"It has to be a collaborative process because manufacturers absolutely have leverage and the ability to negotiate with us," she said Thursday in an interview. "The door is open and the manufacturers seem to be walking through it."
CMS is writing details to implement price negotiations passed in President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest change to Medicare prescription benefits in two decades.
The law overhauled how the Medicare program that covers 65 million older and disabled Americans will pay for the most costly medications. CMS plans to identify the first 10 drugs subject to negotiations by Sept. 1, and the negotiated prices will take effect in 2026.
It's new ground for Medicare. Since the program began covering prescription medications 20 years ago, it's relied on private drug benefit plans to negotiate prices for drugs.
The proposal for Medicare to bargain directly has faced intense pushback from the pharmaceutical industry, which argued that it would amount to price-setting and discourage companies from investing in some new therapies.
The law passed last year in a policy triumph for Biden and congressional Democrats. Now it's up to CMS to craft the details.
