National Law Review: CMS Proposes Changes to Lower Drug Prices

​In a recent article for National Law Review that examines CMS’ new rule on Part D,the authors cite the Partnership’s recent Avalere report that casts doubt on the proposed rule’s beneficial effects . The piece highlights key data points in Partnership’s report showing that the current system controls costs in a variety of ways, including copayments for expensive brand drugs and promoting generic utilization. “As such, changes to the current system motivated solely by overall cost could be detrimental for certain high risk patients who are receiving treatments including cancer, HIV, and kidney transplants that require expensive drugs with high copayments and no generic options,” the authors point out. “There is further concern that reducing the protections of certain medications will ultimately lead to their exclusion from Part D plan formularies.”

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