Coalition Warns Administration’s Drug Pricing Index Would Limit Access

A coalition of more than 200 healthcare advocacy and biopharma groups warned congressional leaders of unintended consequences of the Trump administration’s proposal to tie Medicare Part B drug prices to those of foreign countries.

The administration’s proposed Medicare Part B International Pricing Index model program would do far more for pharmacy benefit managers than for patients, according to the Part B Access for Seniors and Physicians Coalition. The approach would restrict access to drugs in the short term and reduce incentives for medical advancement in the long term, the coalition said. 

Americans get access to new cancer medicines an average of two years earlier than patients in Europe, the coalition noted, adding that restrictions imposed by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, for example, “create substantial barriers between patients and life-saving treatments.”