“It’s hard to miss the big red flag that Medicare is grossly overpaying these plans when you see that beneficiaries have more than 30 plans available in their area and are being bombarded daily by TV, magazine and billboard ads,” says Cristina Boccuti, director of health policy at West Health.
Last year, West Health Policy Center warned that if these trends continue, cost-related nonadherence to drug therapy—skipping doses to save money—will be “a leading cause of death in the U.S., ahead of diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, and kidney disease.”
Applying inflation caps to the commercial market would generate more than $150 billion in revenue for the federal government by 2030, according to an estimate by West Health.
“We are concerned that the agreement will not go far enough, fast enough. … We see today’s agreement as a positive step forward, but it falls far short of the bold reform that is needed,” Shelley Lyford, president and CEO of nonprofit West Health, said in a statement.
Sean Dickson, drug pricing expert at West Health, told Endpoints he’s still waiting to hear more details on the penalties that may occur when drug prices increase faster than the rate of inflation.
Insurers benefit from the high prices in the current system because their profits are percentage-based, so as costs go up, so do their profits, according to Sean Dickson, West Health director of Health Policy.
West Health’s Shelley Lyford, president and chief executive officer, and Dr. Zia Agha, chief medical officer and executive vice president, join the Gallup Podcast to discuss the master plan and how West Health’s approach can address different needs and sectors that touch a senior citizen’s life.
Medicare would have saved 18% to 30% on newly launched drugs from 2015 to 2019 if it had used domestic reference pricing to control prices, and domestic reference prices for most drugs were even above the prices suggested by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, according to a report by West Health Policy Center, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, San Diego.
By Steven Reinberg September 22, 2021 As many as 18 million Americans can’t afford their prescribed medications, a new nationwide poll finds. That’s 7% of the adult population in the United States. But when it comes to households making less than $24,000 per year, the percentage jumps to 19%, the West Health/Gallup poll revealed. Here… Read more »
About 18 million Americans, or 7% of U.S. adults, say they were recently unable to pay for at least one prescription medication for their household, according to a new poll from Gallup and West Health.
