America’s new drug-pricing rules have perverse consequences

A quirk of American law long barred Medicare, the public-health insurer for the elderly, from negotiating with drug firms over prices. Even as the National Health Service in Britain and other government procurers haggled with companies to bring costs down, one of the world’s biggest spenders on drugs was forced to be a price-taker. Americans, meanwhile, spend more than twice as much on prescription medicines as people in other rich countries. In an attempt to lower the bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Joe Biden last year, now allows Medicare to use its purchasing power. On August 29th the administration revealed a list of ten drugs over which talks will soon begin.