« Drug companies will set a price at whatever the market will bear. The prices have put a squeeze on too many people’s families, » Biden said on Thursday.
President Joe Biden is calling on Congress to act to lower prescription drug prices by creating penalties for pharmaceutical companies that raise their prices faster than inflation, giving Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices and approving other cost-cutting measures. « There aren’t a lot of things that almost every American can agree on, but I think it’s safe to say that all of us—whatever our background or our age, where ever we live—can agree that prescription drug prices are outrageously expensive in America, » Biden told reporters Thursday. « We need Congress to act. » Medicare—the federal health insurance program that covers more than 61 million Americans, most of them ages 65 and older—can negotiate costs for every other service, but it’s blocked from the same power when it comes to prescription drugs. Biden said allowing the program to negotiate would open the lower prices up to commercial payers, so costs for employer health insurance would also fall. « Right now, drug companies will set a price at whatever the market will bear, » Biden said. « The prices have put a squeeze on too many people’s families. » Biden wants the federal government to create a new advanced research initiative that would lead efforts to develop new life-saving drugs.
