Prescription Drugs

• News: Lobbyists Fight Democratic Proposals on Drug Pricing, Vaccine Access

  April 09, 2021: Pharmaceutical corporations are preparing for battle as President Biden considers whether to waive patent protections on vaccines to help other nations fight the coronavirus and House Democrats write legislation to require Medicare to negotiate the p...Read more >

• KHN: Democrats Eye Medicare Negotiations to Lower Drug Prices

  March 25, 2021: Democrats, newly in control of Congress and the White House, are united behind an idea that Republican lawmakers and major drugmakers fiercely oppose: empowering the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate the prices of brand-name drugs ...Read more >

• KHN: As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them

  February 16, 2021: Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels. These bills, sponsor...Read more >

• Fact Sheet: Pandemic Treatment Access and Affordability (PTAA) Act

  January 29, 2021: The federal government has spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on research and development (R&D) of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, including $23 billion for manufacturing and purchasing. Despite this public investment, there is no g...Read more >

• KHN: Seniors Face Crushing Drug Costs as Congress Stalls on Capping Medicare Out-Of-Pockets

  January 07, 2021: Sharon Clark is able to get her life-sustaining cancer drug, Pomalyst — priced at more than $18,000 for a 28-day supply — only because of the generosity of patient assistance foundations. Clark, 57, a former insurance agent who lives in Bixby,...Read more >

• KHN: How Pharma Money Colors Operation Warp Speed’s Quest to Defeat COVID

  December 02, 2020: April 16 was a big day for Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company on the verge of becoming a front-runner in the U.S. government’s race for a coronavirus vaccine. It had received roughly half a billion dollars in federal funding to develop a COVI...Read more >

• Gilead’s Remdesivir Price Gouging is Shameful Profiteering During a Pandemic

  June 29, 2020: The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, regarding Gilead’s announcement that the price of Remdesivir in the United States will jump by 30% percent from $2,340 per patient to $3...Read more >

• Fact Sheet: Coronavirus Response and Older Americans

  March 03, 2020: In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Congress enacted three coronavirus assistance packages to provide relief to families and businesses in March 2020. The packages also helped older Americans and nursing homes. Provisions included out-of-netw...Read more >

• Fact Sheet: House Drug Price Negotiation Bill

  January 18, 2020: The “noninterference” clause of Medicare Part D currently prohibits the government from negotiating lower drug prices. To address this issue,  House Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats passed the Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R. 3) on December 1...Read more >