WASHINGTON — Pharmaceutical companies are doing anything they can to stop President Biden’s Medicare program from being able to negotiate prices for their products, including suing the government. Experts say their efforts might actually benefit Biden by reminding voters that he’s taking on big drug companies.
When Democrats passed a law directing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, it was considered a major achievement. The new law, two decades in the making, gives Biden an accomplishment to both tout for himself and criticize Republicans for opposing — no Republicans voted to let Medicare negotiate drug prices.
Medicare price negotiation is popular with voters, as are the law’s price-inflation limits, and it includes additional, direct benefits for older adults that are easy to understand. It caps annual out-of-pocket retail-drug spending for seniors and people with disabilities, and it caps their monthly spending on insulin at $35.