New Medicare Drug Plans Fail to Provide Meaningful Drug Price Discounts

Publication

New Medicare Drug Plans Fail to Provide Meaningful Drug Price Discounts

Abstract

The Special Investigations Division of the House Committee on Government Reform examines a new prescription drug benefit being offered through the Medicare Part D during the Bush Administration. The analysis compares drug prices offered by ten leading Medicare drug plans with four benchmarks: federal government-negotiated prices, drug prices in Canada, Drugstore.com prices, and Costco prices. The report concludes that the Medicare drug benefit has not succeeded in reducing drug prices. On average, the drug prices offered by the Medicare drug plans are over 80% higher than federal government-negotiated prices, over 60% higher than prices in Canada, over 3% higher than Drugstore.com prices, and almost 3% higher than Costco prices.