This week, Marsha Simon was quoted in MedPage Today for her view of President Biden’s executive order on improving competition in the prescription drug arena and other markets. “The policy does nothing to restrain the cost of the priciest Part B drugs by policies such as using AMP [average manufacturer price] rather than ASP [average sales price] to reimburse hospital outpatient clinics, as the MMA [Medicare Modernization Act] allows, or proposing legislation to impose an inflation penalty on Part B drugs,” Marsha said in an email. “The latter proven policy is largely responsible for reducing the cost of drugs to state Medicaid programs by 50% and is included in the House leadership and Senate bipartisan bills.”
In addition, Marsha noted with respect to the 340B program, “despite losses in the lower courts, this administration has pursued the Trump policy of clawing back 340B savings from safety-net hospitals, when a better alternative would be to share savings between the hospitals and the Medicare program.” Under the 340B program, drugmakers are required to sell their products at lower prices to hospitals that treat a lot of low-income patients.
Lastly, Marsha criticized another part of the executive order. “Why bother proposing reimportation again?” Marsha said. “It is a Rube Goldberg device that imports another country’s drug pricing policies rather than developing our own. The past experience of Florida’s failed attempt to operationalize the policy should suggest to the administration that they need to look at other alternatives.”