{"id":3569,"date":"2016-07-16T06:34:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-16T10:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2016-07-15T10:38:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T14:38:42","slug":"insurers-can-reduce-drug-prices-if-policymakers-let-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=3569","title":{"rendered":"Insurers Can Reduce Drug Prices, If Policymakers Let Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(By David Howard for <em>Health Affairs<\/em> Blog, July 14, 2016<\/p>\n<p>Whilst decrying rapid increases in drug spending and prices, elected officials have actually made it increasingly difficult for insurers to do anything about it. As payers, insurers are the only parties in the health care system who have both the means and the incentive to counter drug firms\u2019 pricing power. For example, insurers have aggressively steered patients from branded to generic drugs, saving billions in the process. However, much of the growth in drug spending is attributable to new drugs that do not yet face generic competition. <a href=\"http:\/\/healthaffairs.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/14\/insurers-can-reduce-drug-prices-if-policymakers-let-them\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read article here&#8230;..<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Copyright \u00a92015\u00a0<em>Health Affairs<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> by Project HOPE \u2013 The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<pre><strong>Notice<\/strong>: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(By David Howard for Health Affairs Blog, July 14, 2016 Whilst decrying rapid increases in drug spending and prices, elected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicare-general","category-part-dprescription-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3570,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}