Prescription Drugs

This landing page presents the abstract of a paper published in Health Affairs. The full text of the article is available at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00837.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) makes improvements to Medicare to increase accessibility and affordability of prescription drugs for Medicare enrollees, reduce the rate of growth in Medicare drug spending, and improve the financial sustainability of the Medicare program.

This ASPE data point links manufacturer location data with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Risk Index (NRI), which describes relative risk of experiencing a variety of natural hazards in order to highlight the ways in which natural disasters may pose supply chain vulnerabilities within the U.S.

Medical product shortages are an ongoing public health concern, with at least 140 products in shortage as of July 2024.We use the Household Pulse Survey to examine how many adults are affected by shortages of critical medical products in the United States.In fall 2023, shortages of medical products impacted about 38.8 million (18 percent) of individuals in the United Stat

We report findings of a case study of Civica Rx, a U.S. nonprofit pharmaceutical company whose model is based on long-term hospital membership agreements with minimum volume commitments and buffer stock requirements.Related Products:

We report findings of a study that described the emerging nonprofit pharmaceutical industry and its commercialization activities to enhance access to affordable and essential drugs, or resiliency in the supply chains of medical products.

Effective January 1, 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) eliminated cost sharing and deductibles for adult vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) covered under Medicare Part D. In 2023, 10.3 million Medicare Part D enrollees received a recommended vaccine free of charge, which saved enrollees more than $400 million in out-of-pocket costs.

Drug shortages are a persistent problem that can cause substantial disruption in patient treatment regimens and adversely impact a patient’s health. Drug shortages can have severe consequences for patients, including high costs, delayed care, and potential medication errors or unintended side effects when using alternative or unfamiliar drugs.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is helping people with Medicare, including nearly 30 million women enrolled in Part D. Our review shows that, in 2020, about 733,000 women enrolled in Part D and B would have benefited from the IRA’s $35 insulin cap and, in 2021, about 2 million women would not have had any out-of-pocket costs for recommended adult vaccines covered by Part D.