Editorial Board
A Bipartisan Way to Lower Drug Prices
The White House and Democrats agree: The government should demand rebates for drugs sold to poor Medicare beneficiaries.
Useful, but so expensive.
Photographer: Photofusion/Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesWhite House budget director Mick Mulvaney has floated an idea to bring down drug prices that's both promising and -- if other Republicans can be persuaded to go along -- bipartisan.
At a recent health-care forum, Mulvaney proposed that drugmakers be required to pay rebates to the government on drugs sold to Medicare beneficiaries, as they do with drugs sold to Medicaid patients. The companies must rebate 23 percent of the average wholesale price of a drug, plus an extra percentage if the drug's price has risen faster than overall inflation.