Clinton Reveals Drug Pricing Plan
Hillary Clinton unveiled a new plan on Sept. 22 during a community forum in Des Moines, Iowa to tackle high drug prices. The plan reveal was a follow-up to a tweet from the presidential candidate a day prior, on Sept.
Hillary Clinton unveiled a new plan on Sept. 22 during a community forum in Des Moines, Iowa to tackle high drug prices. The plan reveal was a follow-up to
"The provisions of the Clinton plan have been proposed many times in the past, and have always been rebuffed on a bipartisan basis because of the widely recognized fact that they are simply bad ideas for patients," said Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President and CEO Jim Greenwood, in a
Out-of-pockets caps
Obamacare already caps out-of-pocket expenses for patients, but these caps-$6350 for individuals and $12,700 for families per year-can quickly be met in the first few months of a year, and there are currently no per-month limits. At a limit of $250 per month per individual, the yearly cap would be $3000 a year, which is close to the cost of one month’s supply for many specialty medications. A video clip of Clinton that appeared on MSNBC on Sept. 22, 2015, captured her saying that under her plan, Americans “won’t pay more than $250 per month for covered drugs.” What’s important here is the emphasis on covered drugs; if insurers narrow their formularies in response to the out-of-pocket caps, it is unclear if these caps would be valid. If certain drugs are not “covered” (or are only partially covered) by an insurance company, a patient could theoretically pay much more than $250 a month, especially in the case of specialty medications.
Exclusivity changes
Clinton proposed a shortening of the exclusivity period for biologic drugs from 12 years to 7 years, a change that had previously been mentioned-albeit indirectly-via budget documents from the Obama administration. Opponents of this proposed change say that reducing the marketing exclusivity period for biologics would have a negative affect on innovation and would weaken the US’ competitive edge in the pharma industry.
Supply chain considerations
A hugely problematic part of Clinton’s proposal could come from the effective monitoring of drugs-both for quality and safety-if importation of medications from other countries were allowed. Sanders expressed on “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC on Sept. 22, 2015 that pharma has a monopoly on distribution channels via the use of controlled distribution, wherein companies restrict access to medications via a change in where a drug is available. Controlled distribution is usually a strategy employed as a measure to mitigate risk and/or for the purpose of pharmacovigilance; however, some pharma companies have been accused of using controlled distribution as a method to prevent generic-drug manufacturers from obtaining enough product to use for bioequivalence studies.