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Grassley Calls for Drugmakers to Share Medicare Costs

June 12, 2019

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.

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