Medicare drug price negotiations

A headshot of Mariana Socal - First drugs picked for Medicare price negotiations - Thanks to the Inflation Reducation Act, Medicare beneficiaries will get transparent drug prices for the first time in history, explains Johns Hopkins expert Mariana Socal. Mariana Socal is an associate scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research looks at ways to make the U.S. pharmaceutical market more competitive, delivering drugs of greater value for lower costs. What do we need to know?. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022, included major drug pricing reforms for the United States. Together with other provisions-such as capping Medicare beneficiaries' out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs and penalizing drug manufacturers that raise prices faster than the rate of inflation-the Inflation Reduction Act empowered the Health and Human Services secretary to negotiate prescription drug prices on behalf of the Medicare program. Illustration of pills erupting from prescription bottle - On Tuesday, Aug.