Biden Urges Congress to Let Medicare Negotiate Cost of Prescription Drugs in Efforts to Reduce High Prices

President Joe Biden on Thursday detailed his administration’s plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs while calling on Congress to help tackle the issue by reducing high prices of life-saving medication.

Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Biden said he aims to help lower prescription drug costs nationwide as part of the ambitious Build Back Better agenda he is seeking to push through Congress.

The president argued that too many families are being forced to chose between paying for medications or putting food on the table and urged lawmakers to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly and penalise drugmakers who raise prices faster than inflation.

“For years, the price of many prescription drugs has dramatically outpaced inflation,” Biden said.”These prices have put the squeeze on too many families and stripped them of their dignity.

“They’ve been forced, we’ve forced people into terrible choices between maintaining their health, paying the rent or the mortgage, putting food on the table. I mean, literally. And that’s the case for a lot of working families and seniors, even if you can get the care you need.”

During his speech, Biden praised drugmakers for their life-saving work developing COVID-19 vaccines but noted that “we can make a distinction between developing these breakthroughs and jacking up prices on a range of medications for a range of everyday diseases and conditions.”

The president said that Americans pay 2-3 times as much as people in other countries for prescription drugs, and a quarter of Americans struggle to afford their medications.

Medicare negotiates prices for every other type of health care but is barred by law from negotiating drug prices, leading to increased costs for consumers.

Under his plan, Medicare would be able to negotiate the price for a subset of expensive drugs that don’t face any competition in the market.

Negotiators would be provided a framework for what constitutes a fair price for each drug, and incentives would be put in place to make sure drug companies agree to a reasonable price.