Medicare is poised to negotiate drug prices

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After two decades, Democrats are finally on track to break the firewall between the pharmaceutical industry and the Medicare program, STAT tells us. Soon, the U.S. government will be able to use the full brunt of its leverage to negotiate discounts from drugmakers, like the governments in many other high-income countries. The reform is a stunning defeat for the pharmaceutical industry, which has invested a staggering amount of money to get its way in Washington, and which launched a seven-figure campaign last month to try to stop this effort. But implementing the new negotiating power will be a contentious experiment.