No, not much has actually been accomplished. It is strange to call any of this negotiation because that’s not what it is.
The 10 drugs under negotiation
Medicare’s first drug price negotiations will focus on insulin, blood thinners and more. The drugs are:
Eliquis
Jardiance
Xarelto
Januvia
Farxiga
Entresto
Enbrel
Imbruvica
Stelara
Fiasp; Fiasp FlexTouch; Fiasp PenFill; NovoLog; NovoLog FlexPen; NovoLog PenFill
How will people with Medicare benefit from the drug price negotiation program?
There is uncertainty about how many Medicare beneficiaries will see lower out-of-pocket drug costs in any given year under the drug price negotiation program and the magnitude of potential savings, since both will depend on which drugs are subject to the negotiation process and the price reductions achieved through the negotiation process relative to what prices would otherwise be. In addition, whether Part D enrollees pay lower out-of-pocket costs for a given Part D selected drug will depend in part on whether they pay flat copayment amounts or a coinsurance rate for the drug in their chosen Part D plan. If they pay coinsurance, they could see savings, assuming the negotiated maximum fair price is lower than their plan’s negotiated price.
Kaiser Family Foundation
If drugmakers don’t comply with the process, they will have to pay an excise tax of up to 95% of the medications’ US sales or pull all their products from the Medicare and Medicaid markets. The pharmaceutical industry contends that the true penalty can be as high as 1,900% of sales.
CNN.com
In the case of advertising targeted at clinicians, it has been well studied that drug promotion to medical providers impacts prescribing habits and behaviors. A systematic review of fifty-eight studies showed a negative influence of medication selection by providers with greater exposure to information provided by pharmaceutical companies.[5] These negative influences included “higher prescribing frequency, higher costs, and lower prescribing quality.”[5]
National Library of Medicine
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Just a general statement about costs and how we can lower them now. SingleCare and Good RX are decent resources. I try and compare my Part D insurance companies formulary prices with the two web base companies. Many times the web base companies are cheaper than my insurance, Its easy to do and always saves me money in the process.
I’m not smart enough to argue the points about this Medicare negotiations on drugs, so I wait to see and hope for the best. One thing for sure, is I don’t trust the drug companies to be honest in any way. I’m jaded there but all of you that are better at this than me, I’ll read and hopefully get enough info to make decisions for the future. Right now, like everyone else, i get by. Life is good.
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The vast majority of Americans not only won’t benefit from the Medicare Rx “negotiations”; in fact, this will, a la other Medicare “negotiations” shift the cost not to the drug manufacturers or the PBMs, but to other users of the same and other drugs who are not covered under Medicare. This cost shift is apparent to anyone who looks – confirmed by multiple studies by Rand which show that employer-sponsored plans pay 125% more (225%) of the Medicare allowable.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1144-1.html
This was “Bidenomics” at its best. Take from many to buy votes from a few.
The rest of America won’t know why they are paying more for Rx – just as most Americans who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid don’t know why their health care coverage costs so much.
Further, this change offers the added “benefit” of potentially delaying drug development – likely to result in less favorable treatment, greater illness, and unfortunately, increases in both morbidity and mortality – versus what would have happened had the Inflation Reduction Act changes never took effect.
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It is one reason why “Medicare for All (M4A)” has such a favorable connotation – because medicare point of purchase cost sharing (deductibles, coinsurance, copayments) have increased only 3 – 4% for the past four decades – since the government started “negotiating” via RBRVS and DRGs.
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I understand that the negotiated prices won’t take effect until 2026 and that some meds are going to generic that year and the year after. Also, since the rule is in court, the timelines may be pushed farther out.
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As someone who takes Xarelto, I certainly hope it works. I pay $360 for 90 pills (1 a day). That’s with insurance. Without insurance it’s over $1700 for those same 90 pills!
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First, are you paying a fixed co-pay in your Part D plan? Most important though is how much more if any the “negotiated” discount can be than what your drug plan has already negotiated for the Rx. Nobody pays the retail prices that are thrown around, they are all negotiated discounts.
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So what do you recommend policy wise?
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