Our last blog post was a retrospective look back upon what the Inflation Reduction Act succeeded in doing before its one-year anniversary. That post also discussed what the Inflation Reduction Act had yet to accomplish and included discussion of drug price negotiations. Shortly after that post, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the list of ten drugs selected for price negotiations. Many of those ten drugs treat similar common chronic health conditions, such as heart diabetes, heart failure, and psoriasis. Also notable is the financial burden these drugs carry for the taxpayers who fund Medicare. For example, CMS data shows that Imbruvica, used to treat blood cancers, cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100,000 per Medicare beneficiary whose benefits covered the cost of the drug. (Approximately 20,000 Medicare beneficiaries took Imbruvica in that time period).
This new CMS data underscores the importance of the Inflation Reduction Act for not just Medicare beneficiaries, pharmacists, and pharmaceutical companies, but every taxpayer in America. To learn more about updates on drug price negotiations, read the latest CMS fact sheet: (https://www.cms.gov/files/document/fact-sheet-medicare-selected-drug-negotiation-list-ipay-2026.pdf).
