The 10 drugs for Medicare to negotiate the price have been chosen:
The list is enumerated by NBC (without the context for people outside the US):
The interesting entry from our point of view is the last two, if correctly reported by NBC: “Fiasp and NovoLog”. OK stop laughing; that may actually be correct (Fiasp is Novolog with an adjuvant, the competing products are Lyumjev and Humalog…)
Clearly more investigation is required, like finding the CMS news release. I don’t quite believe the NBC one since it is inconsistent with the, perhaps optimistic, BBC interpretation.
It promises to be a long fight through the courts. At least seven lawsuits have been filed against the effort, including one by the US Chamber of Commerce claiming unconstitutionality. I’m sure some court will file an injunction while the suits progress and the pharma orgs will slow role the court progress to wring max profits in the time period (years) just in case they lose.
While I don’t see how negotiation of prices can be unconstitutional (every fed branch competes and negotiates contracts), the manner used in ref to drugs is like a sword is Damacles (sp?) hanging overhead as “incentive”.
That is how the drug companies seem to be treating it, and it is a fairly accurate description. Summarized: if you keep on this way you will die. That’s not the way it was intended, though the people who ended up with this approach probably realized full well what they were doing; the original, and underlying, aim is for the CMS to be able to “negotiate” prices but the philosophical objection is that this allows the CMS to “set” prices (this is the way it is done in the UK) and this approach is “anti-competitive” and therefore unacceptable from a religious viewpoint.
This is what is referred to here (the US) as “politics”, so quotes from Cicero are out of place. I was trying to present information so that people on FUD can see what is happening and, indeed, what is not happening.
Your post was accurate & mine meant as no reproach. I replied to furnish correct spelling of “Damocles”. Found this link the most interesting. Classics are never out of place, though like scripture they can be applied variously. Authors of America’s constitution were classically educated & their concepts derive much from Greek & Roman accounts. Indeed all should be aware & raise concerns & voices to political reps.