More than a decade after Democrats first ran on the proposal, Medicare is finally set to start negotiating prices for certain prescription drugs. This week, the federal government announced the 10 medications that would be included in the first round of negotiations. New prices would take effect in 2026. The 10 drugs on the list are a diverse set. Some are taken by millions of people with price tags in the low thousands of dollars annually. Others are priced at more than six figures per year and taken by a...

The Biden administration has taken a major step to rein in price gouging for prescription drugs in the United States. Medicare will now be able to negotiate prices on 10 of the most expensive drugs used to treat diabetes, cancer, heart disease and more. That list is set to expand over the years. In what’s seen as a blow to Big Pharma, the White House says the move, a part of the Inflation Reduction Act, will benefit more than 9 million people in the U.S. and lead to $100 billion...

For decades, Americans have paid more for prescription drugs than any other major economy. This, while the pharmaceutical industry rakes in record profits. For almost 20 years, the democratic agenda has sought to lower these prices. Finally, they’ve got the ball rolling. The Biden Administration yesterday (Aug. 29) picked the first 10 prescription drugs for which it’ll negotiate the prices. The drugs were chosen from the top 50 Part D drugs that are eligible for negotiation that have the highest total expenditures in Medicare. Drug companies have until Oct. 1...

Drugmakers attacked the Inflation Reduction Act on Tuesday as Medicare unveiled the first drugs to face price caps under the law. The drugs include the blood thinner Eliquis, diabetes treatment Jardiance and eight other medications. The negotiation process, authorized last year, caps decades of debate over whether the federal government should be allowed to haggle with pharmaceutical companies. Any lower prices won't take effect for three years, and the path forward could be further complicated by litigation from drugmakers and heavy criticism from Republicans.

The Biden administration on Tuesday unveiled the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations, promising billions of dollars in savings for the federal government and the nine million Medicare beneficiaries taking at least one of the popular medications. Medicare has been banned from directly negotiating lower drug prices since 2003, but the Inflation Reduction Act opened the door to some haggling. "This is a major step toward reducing drug spending," Stacie Dusetzina, a drug pricing expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told The Wall Street Journal.

pleasantly stunned health care reform advocates Tuesday by including short-acting insulin in its list of 10 drugs for which Medicare will negotiate lower prices, power vested in the White House by the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA was passed in the face of one of the heftiest barrages of lobbying in congressional history, with the pharmaceutical industry spending more than $700 million over 2021 and 2022 — several times more than the second- and third-ranking industries — much of it aimed at stopping the legislation, watering it down, or undermining...

The medications announced on Tuesday target highly common diseases in the U.S., such as heart disease, heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. The selection included insulin drug NovoLog, blood thinner Eliquis, antidiabetic Jardiance and leukemia drug Imbruvica, as well as a more unanticipated pick: Stelara, which is used to treat Crohn’s disease. The drugs chosen for initial Medicare price negotiation were picked based on a very specific set of guidelines.

As President Joe Biden touts the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price talks, Republicans are searching for their own message that would resonate with voters on the downsides of his signature domestic achievement. Piggybacking on the pharmaceutical industry’s strategy, Republicans are working to persuade Americans that the Biden plan will stifle innovation and lead to price controls, several strategists say. “The price control is a huge departure from where we have been as a country,” said Joel White, a Republican health care strategist. “It gets politicians and bureaucrats right...

A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. While much of the oxygen in the US political conversation is sucked up by former President Donald Trump’s forthcoming trials, there is other news to report. What could in hindsight be a milestone moment occurred Tuesday in Washington when the government announced the first 10 prescription drugs for which Medicare will negotiate prices. Driving down the cost of prescription drugs has been a priority of every recent president...