Drugmakers should contribute to Medicare’s catastrophic costs, says Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The public pays 80 percent of catastrophic care under Medicare, Part D and Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said that it’s created “perverse incentives” for insurers and drug companies to get patients treated as such.
“Right now, there’s a big push to get thru the donut [hole] and get into catastrophic coverage, cause that’s where the taxpayer comes in,” he said, speaking at a forum hosted last week by Axios. “We want to take away that incentive by having the insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals pay a greater part of the cost, put a cap on what out of pocket expenses would be and save the taxpayers’ money in the process.”
Grassley said that he’s confident that a package of bills will get to the Senate floor this year that will bring some daylight into the nation’s drug pricing regimes.
