Whitehouse Publishes a Report about Drug Prices

The Whitehouse has put up a 30 page report outlining some ways to reduce drug prices.

Not sure what it all means, but maybe they are on to something that will help the gouging.

Many people with the different insurance policies and Medicare / Medicaid already get relief.

But we also know many specific medications are only partly paid for or not paid for at all.

Experts please Analyze and Recommend ...

CEA Report: Reforming Biopharmaceutical Pricing at Home and Abroad

Today, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a report on how the government can help to effectively reduce the prices of lifesaving drugs while stimulating innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Please see below for the executive summary and read the
full report here


The affordability of healthcare and biopharmaceutical drugs is a top concern for Americans. It is often asserted that promoting innovation and affordable drugs are conflicting goals. New innovations, however, often provide improved health that was not previously available at any price or obviate the need for more costly care. They thereby lower the effective price of health down to the price of the patented drugs, and later down to the price of generic drugs. Federal policies that affect drug pricing should satisfy two goals. First, domestic drug prices paid by Americans should be reduced. Second, the price of better health in the future should also be reduced by spurring medical innovation. This report considers policy options to simultaneously advance these two seemingly conflicting goals.


Reducing drug prices that Americans pay means recognizing that many artificially high prices result from government policies that prevent, rather than foster, healthy price competition. Drug prices, for example, are sometimes artificially high due to government regulations that raise prices. This report discusses changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs that could help lower domestic prices, as well as reforms to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that could encourage more robust price competition.

Help or more Confusion ?
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a reply to: xuenchen

The first paragraph in the PDF tells me that this report is full of shLt. The generic prices of drugs are now a play ground of large corps that systematically look for single drug solutions to sicknesses and buy them. Then jack the prices up by 100's of a %. The only way to solve pharma is to set prices like Canada does.

The affordability of healthcare and biopharmaceutical drugs is a top concern for Americans. It
is often asserted that promoting innovation and affordable drugs are conflicting goals.
New innovations, however, often provide improved health that was not previously available at any
price or obviate the need for more costly care. They thereby lower the effective price of health down to theprice of the patented drugs, and later down to the price of generic drugs.

a reply to: xuenchen

Will read later. Thanks:!

Removing the existing regulatory structure for medicine and insurance will fix prices. Adding more regulations will make the problem worse. Medicine is the only 'industry' that doesn't have to provide their costs up front, and their prices will vary between identical procedures each time because they negotiate with the insurance companies on a case by case basis.

Break up all the medical cartels, remove all the stupid regulations and let the market solve the problem.

a reply to: xuenchen

Most people don't realize that, by law, Medicare is NOT allowed to negotiate drug prices. So big Pharma gets to charge what they want. This is the main reason that a lot of Americans cross the border into Canada to fill their prescriptions. Canada does negotiate drug prices with the Pharmaceuticals.
This is a prime example of how lobbying negatively affects the citizenship and how big donations to the political caste can enhance an industry`s bottom line.