How much does the U.S. federal government pay for pharmaceuticals?

A number of different federal agencies buy prescription drugs. However, the price at which these pharmaceuticals are purchased varies dramatically. To quantify this variation, a 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office examines the following prices: Medicare Part D: the prescription drug program for Medicare beneficiaries. Prices are set when private insurers (or pharmacy benefit…

Effect of Medicare Part D on Mortality

Huh and Reif (2017) have an interesting study of the effect of Medicare Part D on mortality.  The abstract is below. We investigate the implementation of Medicare Part D and estimate that this prescription drug benefit program reduced elderly mortality by 2.2% annually. This was driven primarily by a reduction in cardiovascular mortality, the leading cause of…

Did Medicare Part D reduce emergency room visits?

In 2006, the Medicare program was expanded to include prescription drug coverage through the Part D program. Previous studies have found that Medicare Part D improved prescription drug coverage rates among seniors (Levy and Weir,2010), increased medication utilization (Duggan and Morton, 2010), decreased out-of-pocket spending (Engelhardt and Gruber, 2011; Ketcham and Simon, 2008), and reduced medication…

Donuts and drugs

Medicare patients are likely to discontinue their medication in December. Why? Are they busy with the Christmas holidays? Do they have additional expenses for gifts and limited funds for prescription drugs? Perhaps. Another idea advanced by Kaplan and Zhang (2014) is that Medicare’s benefit structure encourages discontinuation. Why is that? Medicare’s Part D drug plan…

Too much competition?

Rarely due consumers think that too much competition is a problem.  According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), however, this is a major issue for consumers when they choose Part D prescription drug health plans.  Avalere reports that: Proposed revisions to the meaningful differences policy will restrict the market’s top sponsors from…

Walmart is the low-price leader

…at least when it comes to prescription drugs.  Health Pocket reports that the lowest cost Part D plan is the Humana/Walmart RX plan which charges a monthly premium of $12.60.  In 2013, AARP MedicareRX Saver Plus from UnitedHealthcare was the lowest cost plan and charged a premium of $15.  In 2014, however, the monthly premium…