Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is hitting roadblocks at every turn in his effort to fulfill President Trump's promise to bring down drug prices.
A clash with the White House itself came to a head on Thursday when administration officials killed one of Azar's most far-reaching proposals to end rebates that middlemen negotiate with drugmakers in the Medicare program. Even though the plan may have helped some people who pay high costs because of the rebates, it would have increased premiums for seniors, with a presidential election right around the corner.
This major loss isn't the administration's first. On Monday, a court ruled HHS didn't have the power to force drugmakers to disclose list prices in television ads. And in May, HHS abandoned a proposal to take away guaranteed coverage for some classes of drugs if their makers raised prices a certain amount, after running into a staunch patient lobby.
These proposals were all part of Trump's 2018 blueprint to slash drug prices. One of the last hopes for the administration to make a splash is through a mysterious "favored-nations clause" Trump said Friday he is working on. It could look something like a proposal he described last year to base what Medicare pays for some drugs on cheaper prices in other countries. Whether the same grim fate awaits that measure remains to be seen.—Anna Edney Here's what else we're watching:Shot shortage: There's still a deficit of EpiPens, more than a year after the FDA flagged a shortfall, and that's causing parents and pharmacists to go to great lengths to secure the lifesaving allergy injections. Deepening mystery: Government health officials are urging U.S. doctors to be on the lookout for a condition that has begun to re-emerge in late summer and early fall, leaving young healthy children paralyzed. Quality questions: Manufacturing problems at an Akorn plant in New Jersey pose a risk to patients, the FDA said, another black mark for a drugmaker that had a takeover fall apart over drug-quality concerns. Another round: German cancer-treatment researcher BioNTech raised $325 million from investors, one of the largest financing rounds ever by a European biotechnology company. A correction: Total U.S. health spending is estimated at about $3.5 trillion. Last week's newsletter incorrectly gave the figure as $3.5 billion. Listen up. Season two of our podcast explored what happens when we hand over our health data to companies and governments. Download it here on Apple devices, and here on Android.  Got this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it every Thursday by clicking here.
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