Author: Sally Pipes

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May 27, 2025 Price and Costs

A recent executive order from the Trump administration directs the government to implement policies that will lead to U.S. drug prices being pegged to the lower drug prices available in other developed countries. It's hard to imagine a more destructive plan. Importing foreign price controls on prescription drugs would reduce access to existing treatments for everything from rare diseases to cancer. To understand why, consider two recent pieces by Michael Baker for the American Action Forum's "Reality Check-Up: The Truth About...

May 20, 2025 Blog, Price and Costs

President Trump and former President Biden don't agree on much. But they appear to have found common cause in calling for government price controls on prescription drugs. Patients will pay dearly, as Michael Baker and Douglas Holtz-Eakin explain in two recent pieces for the American Action Forum's "Reality Check-Up: The Truth About Single-Payer Systems. Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2022. It directs the feds to "negotiate" prices for a steadily increasing number of prescription drugs through Medicare. But...

May 7, 2025 Innovation, Issues, Price and Costs

Read comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Commerce by Sally C. Pipes, PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy, arguing against the imposition of tariffs on pharmaceuticals as part of the Department's examination of pharmaceutical imports and their relevance to U.S. national security interests. Click here to download a copy of Pipes' comments Thank you for inviting public input on the Department's Section 232 examination of pharmaceutical imports and their relevance to U.S. national security interests. As...

April 24, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

In an interview this month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., appeared open to the idea of Medicare covering drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy for beneficiaries with obesity. "Ideally, over the long term, we’d like to see . . . those drugs available for people after they try other interventions," he said. Delaying coverage of these breakthrough weight-loss medications is not the right approach. Read the entire op-ed here....

April 22, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

More than 4 in 5 Americans blame the pharmaceutical industry’s profits for the high prices of prescription drugs. It’s little wonder, then, that roughly the same share supports placing price controls on prescription drugs through Medicare. The logic is straight out of Robin Hood. Our leaders should take from the “rich” drug companies and give to the “poor” patients. Read the op-ed here....

April 2, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

A new paper by the America First Policy Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Trump administration, has revived the debate over global drug pricing. The paper points out that patients in the United States tend to pay considerably more for brand-name prescription drugs than those in most other wealthy nations. The think tank argues that the Trump administration should find ways to force other countries to pay more for drugs — and thus pick up a more equitable...

March 31, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

The U.S. Senate last week confirmed former Johns Hopkins surgeon and professor Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration. During his confirmation hearing, Makary said his goals for the agency were "more cures and meaningful treatments for Americans." Throughout the hearing, he offered insight on how he would achieve those goals, including leveraging artificial intelligence and making other regulatory changes to streamline the drug review process. That's great news for patients. Read the entire op-ed here....

January 29, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

On this Wednesday and Thursday, two powerful Senate committees will hold confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is no stranger to controversy. But his most radical policy position may be one that relatively few people are talking about. Politico recently reported that RFK Jr. has "expressed openness" to seizing drug companies' patents and relicensing them to generic manufacturers—a move that would effectively implement roundabout price controls on...

January 27, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

Just three days before President Biden left office, his appointees tried to tie incoming Trump staffers' hands on a health policy decision that affects millions of Americans and tens of billions in federal spending. On January 17, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a new list of 15 drugs under Medicare Part D that will be subjected to price controls under the Inflation Reduction Act on January 1, 2027. The list was announced this month despite the IRA not...

January 24, 2025 Issues, Price and Costs

California State Senator Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, recently introduced a bill aimed at reining in pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the middlemen largely responsible for the dysfunction plaguing our nation’s prescription drug market. Wiener’s effort should attract the support of lawmakers on both the left and right. By cracking down on the activities of PBMs, they can deliver real savings for patients at the pharmacy counter. Read the op-ed here....

January 6, 2025 Price and Costs

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed a rule expanding Medicare and Medicaid patients’ access to anti-obesity drugs such as GLP-1s. Congress is also considering such a move. Expanding coverage to these patient groups makes sense. Read the op-ed here....

September 24, 2024 Price and Costs

Last week, a House subcommittee held a hearing on pharmacy benefit managers and their impact on the prices patients pay for prescription drugs.The hearing speaks to voters' concerns. Republicans and Democrats alike have identified the cost of prescription drugs as their No. 2 health care concern, according to polling this month from KFF.And PBMs deserve congressional scrutiny. These middlemen have used their enormous influence in the drug market to make prescription medications unaffordable for a sizable share of patients. Read the...

September 16, 2024 Price and Costs

It's easier to have a car or refrigerator shipped to your home these days than a prescription. To get even the most common prescription drug still requires a visit to the doctor, a trip to the pharmacy, and a convoluted series of negotiations between insurers, middlemen, and pharmaceutical companies. Fortunately, that's starting to change. In recent months, drug companies Pfizer and Eli Lilly have begun rolling out direct-to-consumer programs that let patients purchase basic prescriptions remotely. Read the full article at Forbes...

August 27, 2024 Price and Costs

Medicare this month announced the end of its first round of "negotiations" over the prices of 10 prescription drugs covered under the Part D benefit as authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. The results the Biden administration has delivered are a lot less dramatic than they're letting on. According to the White House, the program will save the federal government an estimated $6 billion in 2026, the first year the new prices will be in effect, while reducing costs for seniors...

August 26, 2024 Price and Costs

Dozens of state and local governments are suing drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers, alleging that they're unfairly hiking the price of insulin. The plaintiffs say they're fighting for patients. They're less forthcoming about the fact that they've profited handsomely from the system they're now decrying. For years, these cities and states have insisted on a cut—if not all—of the rebates that these pharmacy benefit managers extract from drug makers when negotiating over whether and how to cover specific drugs.  ...

August 12, 2024 Issues, Price and Costs

Any day now, the Biden administration will publish the prices it has set for ten drugs covered by Medicare's Part D prescription drug benefit. These price controls will provide "meaningful financial relief for millions of people with Medicare," administration officials say. Many seniors are about to see just how false that promise is. Millions of beneficiaries won't see a nickel in relief at the pharmacy counter. In fact, their costs will go up. Click to read the full article in Forbes. ...

August 5, 2024 Innovation, Issues

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing last month with the CEOs of the nation's three largest pharmacy benefit managers: CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx. The hearing coincided with a new report from the committee on the outsized role these prescription-drug middlemen play in determining what people pay for their medicines. Unsurprisingly, the CEO confab revealed little that lawmakers didn't already know. Click to read the full article in Newsmax. ...

July 23, 2024 Coronavirus-Alternate2, Issues

"We have seen complete fabrications become some people's accepted reality," Dr. Anthony Fauci laments in his new memoir "On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service." Surely the good doctor means to speak about his ideological foes, who have long decried the heavy-handed response to COVID-19 that Dr. Fauci symbolizes. But today, more than four years after the world first met COVID-19, it's fair to wonder whether Dr. Fauci's depiction of reality is the one that's fabricated. Click to read the full article in Newsmax. ...

July 22, 2024 Issues, Price and Costs

Earlier this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved donanemab, a novel treatment for Alzheimer's disease that Eli Lilly will sell under the brand name Kisunla. The drug targets amyloid, a type of protein that builds up in the brains of people with the disease. It was shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer's by 35% over 18 months compared to a placebo. Donanemab's approval comes about a year after the agency gave the green light to lecanemab, another monoclonal antibody proven to slow...

June 27, 2024 Issues, Price and Costs

House lawmakers recently introduced legislation that would at last repair a program meant to provide low-income Americans with affordable medicine. In theory, the federal 340B Program, named after the section of the 1992 law establishing it, allows hospitals serving underprivileged groups to buy medications at steep discounts. The idea was to improve access to drugs in areas where price was a barrier. The problem is that the law has a loophole big enough to drive an ambulance through. Hospitals have exploited it,...