Let the Government Negotiate Drug Prices—and Use Savings to Bolster ACA

From the Economic Policy Institute (http://www.epi.org/):

In EPI’s Working Economics blog, EPI’s Bivens lauds Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic colleagues in the Senate and the House for pushing meaningful health care reform by introducing the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act. The bill instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to get the lowest prices possible for drugs paid by the federal government under Medicare (also known as Medicare Part D). The ability to negotiate drug prices in the Medicare Part D program could lower out-of-pocket costs for Medicare recipients and save the federal government between $22 billion and $54 billion annually—funds that could be used to lower out-of-pocket costs for American insured under the Affordable Care Act, Bivens writes.