Congress could eliminate the Part D “protected classes” rule which forces insurers to pay for any drugs in six arbitrary categories, regardless of their price or value. (The Trump administration had proposed just such a reform, but withdrew it in a sop to the drug lobby.)
More substantially, Congress should require that drug companies selling drugs into Part D rebate any price increases above consumer inflation to Medicare, to offset the program’s taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Without reforms of this type, it’s highly likely that restructuring Part D would drive costs upward.
In one case, an insurer prevented a woman from getting a CT scan her doctor ordered. In another, a mother couldn’t afford the full regimen of special bags needed to clear her cancer-stricken daughter’s lungs. In a third case, a woman lost her health insurance and could not afford end-of-life chemotherapy.
These examples come from National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses’ union. To prevent further incidents like these, the union favors a universal, government-run health care system. A lead editorial in the New York Times last week appeared to endorse their thinking.
| For generations, the prices that hospitals charge patients with private insurance have been shrouded in secrecy. An explosive new study has unlocked some of those secrets. It finds that employers and their insurers are failing to control hospital costs, increasing calls for transparency into insurer-hospital agreements. The analysis, by Chapin White and Christopher Whaley of the RAND Corporation, finds that hospitals are charging the privately insured 2.4 times what they charge Medicare patients, on average. The authors were able to access the actual contracted prices used by employers representing four million workers. |
| HHS Secretary Alex Azar has been almost singularly focused in delivering on the administration’s promises to increase transparency and lower prescription drug prices since President Trump released his American Patients First blueprint in a Rose Garden ceremony a year ago. The blueprint offered nearly 30 policy recommendations to modernize payment policies, including bringing down out-of-pocket costs for patients. Just last week, HHS issued a final rule to give patients and doctors more tools to monitor and control costs in Medicare. For example, after a start-up period, Medicare Part D plans will be required to provide doctors and other prescribers access to price information for different prescription drugs when they are writing the script. |
The Trump administration announced that it has finalized a new rule requiring all drug companies to include the list prices of their drugs in direct-to-consumer advertisements. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, the White House hopes that more visibility about drug prices will hold drugmakers more accountable and reduce costs for patients at the pharmacy counter.
Americans are frustrated with the current health care system. Care costs far too much. Millions are priced out of the insurance market, and even those with insurance say premiums and deductibles are so high they might as well be uninsured. But when government officials make decisions about what services will be covered, how much providers will be paid, and how much citizens must pay in mandatory federal taxes, consumers will have even fewer choices and less control than they do today. M4All will reduce access to new technologies, stifle innovation, and result in a near-doubling of the tax burden. The Left is undaunted with its promises of free virtually unlimited health care for everyone and has an answer for everything. The House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday, where Chuck Blahous and I testified, showed what we are up against.
Nearly a quarter of a million British patients have been waiting more than six months to receive planned medical treatment from the National Health Service, according to a recent report from the Royal College of Surgeons. More than 36,000 have been in treatment queuesfor nine months or more.
Long waits for care are endemic to government-run, single-payer systems like the NHS. Yet some U.S. lawmakers want to import that model from across the pond. That would be a massive blunder.
The Trump administration has decided to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare in court. Some Republicans in Congress and even some in the administration resisted this decision. Critics assume that if there is no Obamacare, we would revert to the pre-Obamacare health system. If so, how bad would that be? Let’s take a look.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have put aside grandiose thoughts of Medicare-for-All and single-payer health insurance – at least for a day or two. Instead, they have introduced a new health plan with a more modest goal: making Obamacare work better.
It has three elements:
- Expand health insurance subsidies to everyone. (Individuals are currently ineligible for help if they earn $48,560 or more.)
- Create a national reinsurance pool to subsidize insurance companies that incur high costs.
- Reverse Trump administration regulations that make it easier to obtain limited-benefit insurance.
So, what’s wrong with that? For starters, it uses taxpayer dollars to give money to rich people and insurance companies.
Is there a health care deal that would meet the needs and solve the political problems of members of both parties in Congress?
It seems almost inconceivable. The only talk on the left at the moment is Medicare for all. On the right there is not much talk about any aspect of health care. But when pressed, Republicans would still like to abolish Obamacare. Neither party is going to get its wish any time soon.
Still, desperate times call for new thinking. As voters get tired of hearing promises that are never met and never will be met, politicians will feel increasing pressure to accomplish something.