By Charles Ornstein | ProPublica March 29 at 10:00 PM
This story was co-published with the Washington Post.
Medicare spent $4.5 billion last year on new, pricey medications that cure the liver disease hepatitis C — more than 15 times what it spent the year before on older treatments for the disease, previously undisclosed federal data shows.
The extraordinary outlays for these breakthrough drugs, which can cost $1,000 a day or more, will be borne largely by federal taxpayers, who pay for most of Medicare’s prescription drug program. But the expenditures will also mean higher deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket costs for many of the program’s 39 million seniors and disabled enrollees, who pay a smaller share of its cost, experts and federal officials said.
The spending dwarfs the approximately $286 million that the program, known as Part D, spent on earlier-generation hepatitis C drugs in 2013, said Sean Cavanaugh, director of Medicare and deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The most-discussed of the new drugs, Sovaldi, which costs $84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment, accounted for more than $3 billion of the spending. Spending on another drug, Harvoni, hit $670 million even though it came on the market only in October. Bills for a third drug, Olysio, often taken in conjunction with Sovaldi, reached $821 million.
Medicare also spent $157 million on older hepatitis C drugs in 2014, bringing the total spending for the category to more than $4.7 billion.
The spending surge is unlike anything Part D has seen. The nine-year-old program has benefited in recent years from a slowdown in prescription drug costs as several blockbusters, including the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor and the blood thinner Plavix, lost patent protection and have faced competition from generics.
The new hepatitis C drugs, along with other expensive specialty medications in the pipeline, threaten to drastically increase the program’s costs. The federal government spent $65 billion on Part D in 2013, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. That figure doesn’t include monthly premiums paid by patients...
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ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. A version of this article is available at www.propublica.org. ProPublica data reporter Ryann Grochowski Jones contributed to this report.
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The extraordinary outlays for these breakthrough drugs, which can cost $1,000 a day or more, will be borne largely by federal taxpayers, who pay for most of Medicare’s prescription drug program. But the expenditures will also mean higher deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket costs for many of the program’s 39 million seniors and disabled enrollees, who pay a smaller share of its cost, experts and federal officials said.
The spending dwarfs the approximately $286 million that the program, known as Part D, spent on earlier-generation hepatitis C drugs in 2013, said Sean Cavanaugh, director of Medicare and deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The most-discussed of the new drugs, Sovaldi, which costs $84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment, accounted for more than $3 billion of the spending. Spending on another drug, Harvoni, hit $670 million even though it came on the market only in October. Bills for a third drug, Olysio, often taken in conjunction with Sovaldi, reached $821 million.
Medicare also spent $157 million on older hepatitis C drugs in 2014, bringing the total spending for the category to more than $4.7 billion.
The spending surge is unlike anything Part D has seen. The nine-year-old program has benefited in recent years from a slowdown in prescription drug costs as several blockbusters, including the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor and the blood thinner Plavix, lost patent protection and have faced competition from generics.
The new hepatitis C drugs, along with other expensive specialty medications in the pipeline, threaten to drastically increase the program’s costs. The federal government spent $65 billion on Part D in 2013, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. That figure doesn’t include monthly premiums paid by patients...
Continue reading...
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. A version of this article is available at www.propublica.org. ProPublica data reporter Ryann Grochowski Jones contributed to this report.
Related
Reducing the cost of new hepatitis C drugs
Daclatasvir, Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir)/Sovaldi/Viekira Pak.
An index of articles pointing the reader to the current controversy over the high price of Sovaldi, Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir) and AbbVie Viekira Pak.
Daclatasvir, Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir)/Sovaldi/Viekira Pak.
An index of articles pointing the reader to the current controversy over the high price of Sovaldi, Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir) and AbbVie Viekira Pak.
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