The Wall Street Journal reports that the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to cut the cost of Medicare drugs to prevent larger cuts President Barack Obama may impose to fund his health care reform plan.
Under the cost-cutting plan, the drug industry would pay for half the Medicare drug’s price when it’s not covered by the gap under Part D.
Over 10 years, pharmaceutical companies will sacrifice $80 billion by covering a larger share of brand-name prescription drug costs. The health care industry has been surprisingly flexible (or complicit, depending on your point of view) in accommodating the president’s government health care proposal.
According to WSJ, 46 million Americans are uninsured.