Will Publishing Drug List Prices Help to Reduce Their Cost?

One of the current Trump agenda items has been to force drug companies to advertise their list drug prices. On the face of it, this would seem to be a good idea but I don't think it's going to turn out that way for various reasons (see:Despite growing pressure, major drug companies will stop short of disclosing prices in ads). Below is an excerpt from an article on the topic:Dozens of pharmaceutical companies have pledged that their upcoming television advertisements will direct viewers to more information about how much a drug might cost, such as a page on a company website....The [pharmaceutical] trade group is not requiring its members to include actual list prices in their advertisements, a policy idea that Trump administration officials first floated in May....The announcement appears to be an effort to preempt the Trump administration ’s plans to force drug companies to include specific price information directly in their advertisements....The range of prices companies will disclose could run anywhere from $0 to an amount larger than the list price of the drug.PhRMA spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said that companies themselves will decide specifically what numbers to include, meaning that information on one drug company ’s website might not be comparable to another’s. For example, companies with different dosages of the same drug might decide to include the list price of one dosage, or all the dosages....The list price of a drug is set by the phar...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Pharmaceutical Industry Public Health Source Type: blogs