The Presidents recent Executive Order related to drug costs includes this.
- The Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy their drugs directly from manufacturers who sell to Americans at a “Most-Favored-Nation” price, bypassing middlemen.
If the above sounds good, it’s time to think this through. About 86% of Americans have some form of prescription drug insurance. They don’t buy their own drugs, their employers do, insurance does, Medicare or Medicaid does.
Many drugs are expensive, too expensive. But when surveys show prescriptions are unaffordable, a burden, reduce spending in other important areas, we need to understand those results.
Nobody wants to spend a penny on their own health care so even a $20 co-pay can be perceived as a burden. If you put filling a prescription up against going to a ballgame, the prescription will always lose.
Giving people choices when it comes to paying for health care is never a good idea.
If you fill a prescription at your local pharmacy, all your drug plan use is available and the pharmacist or pharmacy benefit manager looks for possible drug interactions. This is especially important if you are seeing several different physicians.
Simplistic solutions may sound attractive, but they have consequences. In this case think of the possible consequences for patients, employers, retail pharmacies, Medicare, etc.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
How does the Trump plan differ from Biden’s? Does Biden’s cover only folks who have A–B—D? I have A–no B–No D–just our insurance co
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I have read for decades that we pay the highest rates in the world for prescription meds. The simple rationale was always because we are a rich country and could afford to subsidize the rest of the world. It always sounded a little too simplistic to me. I also read over the years of people going over the border to buy drugs in Mexico for example. Legal drugs, because they were much cheaper.
What you say is accurate about the drug contracts, pharmacy assistance with possible interactions and so forth. I’ll continue my Plan D arrangement because I get a subsidized deal now. If I didn’t have that and I was looking at paying some huge amount per month and I could get it much cheaper like folks in other countries, I would do it in a heartbeat. Why is that troubling you?
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