Here’s when you may see lower Medicare drug prices

“We will begin the process of negotiating lower prescription drug prices for millions of seniors and people with disabilities across the country,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said. “We finally have the authority to get American families the lower prescription drug costs they deserve.”

HHS said it would release a list of the 10 drugs subject to negotiations in September, with the final prices to be announced in September 2024. The prices would take effect in January 2026.According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 7% of all drugs covered under the Part D prescription drug program accounted for 60% of spending, and 8.5% of drugs covered under Part B accounted for 80% of that program’s spending.The number of drugs subject to negotiation would increase in later years.

The Biden law also would limit Medicare drug price hikes to the rate of inflation, and cap annual out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 and the price of insulin to $35 a month for Medicare recipients. Around 77,000 New Jerseyans receiving Medicare used insulin in 2020, and 45,540 New Jerseyans have more than $2,000 a month in drug costs, according to Kaiser.

When President George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress first added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, they banned the government from negotiating for lower prices.

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U.S. to announce list of drugs for pricing negotiations Sept. 1The U.S. government will announce a list of 10 prescription drugs for which it plans to negotiate the prices for Medicare recipients on Sept. 1, and the prices a year later, a top Biden administration official said on Wednesday. President Joe Biden in August signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which among its provisions for the first time allows the federal Medicare health plan for people age 65 and older and the disabled to negotiate prices on some of the most expensive drugs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) - which oversees Medicare and the negotiation process - announced the specific timeline for the first year of negotiations on Wednesday.
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