Pricing policy prescription drugs

Stuart, B. et al. (2000), Issues in prescription drug coverage, pricing, utilization and spending what we know and need to know , report prepared for US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Evaluation, Office of Health Policy, Washington, DC, February, accessed at http //www.aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/drugstudy/appa.htm. 

Doonan, M., "The Economics of Prescription Drug Pricing," Schneider Institute for Health Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, pp. 5-6 (2001). 

Prescription drugs have many complex characteristics, which, when taken together, have led to major controversies in public policy arenas, including pricing, patents, and incentives for research and development, as well as excess industry profits. Each characteristic is not unique to pharmaceuticals, but rather it is the characteristics, taken in combination, that make the industry unique. 

In the near future, government policies may be less supportive of the pharmaceutical industry than in the past. In the Bush administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt and FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach opposed federal efforts to negotiate lower prices for Medicare prescription drugs and to allow reimportation of prescription drugs at lower prices. In the Obama administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, and FDA chief deputy Joshua Sharfstein will likely change these policies. New laws and policies may do more to favor consumers. 

Almanac of Policy Issues. Prescription Drugs Accessibility and Prices. Available online. URL http //www.policyalmanac.org/health/archive/ prescription drugs.shtml. Downloaded June 17, 2009. This excerpt from a 2000 report sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services describes several problems that patients face in gaining access to... 

A research and advocacy organization that evaluates alternative policies and programs, particularly those at the state level, in order to reduce prescription drug prices and increase access to medications. 

Garber, A. Ed. Berndt is price inflation for the elderly An empirical analysis of prescription drugs. In Frontiers of Health Policy Research, National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge, MA, 1998. 

When Medicare does pay for outpatient prescription drugs, the carriers determine pricing policies. There is no official Medicare cost control strategy pertaining to the few outpatient drugs covered by Medicare. 

R. Graham, Prescription Drug Prices in Canada and the United States — Part 3 Retail Price Distribution, Public Policy Sources No. 50,... 

Responsibility for administration of Part IX of the Drug Tariff is shared between the Department of Health and the Prescription Pricing Division (PPD) of the NHS Business Services Authority. The former has responsibility for policy matters and tire latter for die approval of the four separate lists on behalf of tiie Secretary of State for tiie purposes of i tion 41 of the NHS Act and to determine tiie prices on which payments to contractors are to be based. In addition the PPD has responsibility for operating a mechanism to remove products fiom Part DC. 

---