Health Care Partner Addresses Medicare Drug Payments

In articles published Oct. 25 in Law360 and Bloomberg Law’s Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences News, health care partner Tom Bulleit (Washington, D.C.) discussed the Trump administration’s recent proposal to cut Medicare drug reimbursements to more closely align with lower prices abroad.

Mr. Bulleit suggested that while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has broad demonstration authority to experiment with new payment models, that authority could be strained, and would almost certainly be challenged in court, if it were applied to change the statutory payment structure for half the Medicare Part B drugs in the country. In the event of a successful or even lengthy challenge, congressional action might be needed, and it is not clear that sufficient support exists in Congress.