Opinion: Make list price the touchstone for drug pricing across the supply chain
In October, the House Oversight Committee turned a magnifying glass on the rising cost of prescription drugs. With health care costs critical to voters on both sides of the aisle, lawmakers grilled drug company executives on practices from copay assistance to evergreening. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Cal.) and her whiteboard garnered viral attention after she interrogated Celgene CEO Mark Alles about price hikes to the cancer drug Revlimid.
And the White House recently stepped into the fray. A broad administration rule issued on Oct. 29 will require insurance companies to tell their customers in advance what their out-of-pocket cost will be for a drug and what the company actually paid for it. The rule applies only to private insurance, rather than Medicare and Medicaid, and it is likely to be bogged down quickly in litigation over issues such as proper rule-making procedures, freedom of speech, and trade secrets, but it represents a major attempt at providing information to patients.
