With this change, insurers would still offer such benefits, letting consumers choose which ones they want. But insurers would likely charge substantially more for them than for bare-bones plans, which would appeal mainly to young and healthy people.
.. sicker people will gravitate toward the more-generous coverage, making it even more expensive and further stratifying the market.
Prescription-drug coverage could get caught on the wrong side of this divide, becoming ever more expensive and causing healthier people to skip it.
.. This could force the industry to reckon on a deeper level with the way it prices drugs.
.. So many medicines carry massive price tags because most patients typically pay just a small fraction of those list prices, while insurers handle the rest. That generous coverage is possible partly because everyone with insurance pays for it; healthy 27-year-olds help insure older diabetics.
.. Exposing more patients to high prices will crush demand, hurting sales. And the political pressure drugmakers already feel over prices will only intensify. The more Americans have to pay the actual list prices of drugs, the harder those prices will be to defend.
The GOP’s dramatic change in strategy to pass its health-care law
To get the Affordable Care Act passed, Democrats used a big-tent approach, convening health-care groups that did not normally talk to one another while cutting deals and strong-arming key industry players to build broad support for the plan. First, the drug companies got on board. Then came the hospitals and the doctors.“It was a little thuggish. You’d be at the table or you’d be on the menu,”
.. “I think they were largely left out. This was — from what I can tell and, I think, smartly — done behind closed doors,”
.. As GOP lawmakers move their bill through the House, plowing forward without each industry’s blessing may free them from special interests, allowing them to craft a policy that reflects the desires of their voters.
.. Republicans argue that, far from rushed, the broad outlines of the bill have been out in the open since last summer, when House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) introduced his “A Better Way” proposal.
.. “Our legislation gives the American people the freedom to make their own health care decisions.”
.. PhRMA.The industry trade group agreed to $80 billion in discounts on prescription drugs under Medicare and committed $150 million to an ad campaign to help get the bill passed.
Among the concessions it won in return — efforts to control drug prices under the legislation were quashed.
.. The new bill gives the industry a big tax repeal, worth nearly $25 billion over a decade
.. A pharmaceutical industry official said that the industry is not going to be taking such a public or vocal approach this time, because the ACA insurance exchanges represent a tiny fraction of its business.
.. hospitals may feel sidelined because their willingness to take cuts and support Obama’s law is still a sore spot for some Republicans.
.. “Republicans generally feel there’s a lot of fat that can be cut from the hospital industry,” Condeluci said.
.. Under the new bill, insurers would get a huge tax repeal worth $145 billion over a decade, more freedom to charge young people less and old people more for insurance, and a continuous-coverage rule
Makers of Viagra, Cialis show how rivals tend to raise prices in tandem, a reason for the surge in U.S. prescription-drug spending
Pfizer Inc. raised the list price of Viagra by 13% in June. Less than a week later, Eli Lilly & Co. pushed up the price of its competing pill Cialis by the same percentage.
.. A common six-pill prescription of Viagra or Cialis lists for around $300 today—more than double the price five years ago
.. “Not only have these pharmaceutical companies raised prices significantly—sometimes by double digits overnight—in many instances the prices have apparently increased in tandem,” the pair wrote. The FTC and Justice Department declined to comment.