Medicaid drug price survey proposal halted due to pharmaceutical industry pressure

Biden administration officials have abandoned their own proposal to require drug companies to disclose the prices and research costs of drugs that drive up spending for state Medicaid programs.

Drug companies and lobbying groups put intense pressure on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to abandon the little-noticed idea of ​​creating “drug price review surveys” – indirectly threatening a lawsuit if the government went ahead with it. Industry lobbyists even resorted to dictionaries in their complaints, outraged by how federal officials defined the word “verify.”

The decision to repeal the rule makes clear that the Biden administration was unwilling to take on a unified pharmaceutical industry that is still separately attacking the government's Medicare negotiation program. The about-face also comes after a momentous Supreme Court decision made it easier for the healthcare industry to challenge federal regulations it doesn't like.