Biden administration officials have abandoned their own proposal to require drug companies to disclose the prices and research costs of drugs that are driving up spending in state Medicaid programs.
Pharmaceutical companies and lobbying groups heavily pressured the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to abandon the little-noticed idea to create “drug price verification surveys” — they indirectly threatened to sue if the government moved forward with it. Industry lobbyists even wielded dictionaries in their complaints, incensed over how federal officials defined the word “verify.”
The decision to scrap the rule highlights how the Biden administration was not willing to take on a unified drug industry that is still separately attacking the government’s Medicare drug negotiation program. The about-face also comes after a consequential Supreme Court decision made it easier for the health care industry to litigate federal rules they don’t like.
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