WASHINGTON — The White House at long last published a plan to stem drug shortages, and it involves basing Medicare pay to hospitals on whether hospitals adopt business practices that avoid shortages.
The White House formed a task force at the beginning of 2023 to deal with the issue of persistent drug shortages, including cancer drugs. As of late last summer, lawmakers working on drug shortage legislation hadn’t spoken to the task force and didn’t know who was in charge of it.
There are many proposals in Congress for fixing the problem, but they don’t form a cohesive whole. The various approaches include improving drug manufacturing, boosting domestic manufacturing, giving hospitals the incentive to buy from generic drugmakers that maintain resilient supply chains, and helping generic drugmakers charge higher prices.