WOOT!!! SUPREME COURT DENIES DRUG MAKERS’ (“BIG PHARMA”) ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN MEDICARE DRUG PRICE CAPS!
As anyone who has struggled with signing up for Medicare knows, Medicare Part D (“D is for Drugs”) covers the cost of prescription drugs.
[NOTE: For my plain English explanation of all things Medicare, including how to sign up and figure out all the options, and whether to choose (dis)Advantage (hint: don’t) see here: https://www.mangemerde.com/how-where-sign-up-medicare-link/ ]
Now, before we go any further, I want to point out that this is a case where *this administration* did the right thing. (“What Anne, how can that be??”) Yes, its true.
You see, back in the 2022, through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress gave the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) authority to set price caps on what Medicare would pay on certain prescription drugs.
The big pharma drug manufacturers didn’t like that.
So they sued.
In fact, they sued in many districts, lost in those many districts, appealed to the Courts of Appeal in those districts, and lost bigly there as well. (A sample order, from the District Court of Delaware, and then from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (also Delaware) is included for Notes from the Front members, as is Astrazeneca’s Complaint.)
Who were they suing? The Secretary of HHS. In other words, they were suing the government. Now, in the beginning they were suing the Biden administration. So the Trump administration inherited these lawsuits.
Guess what? The current administration defended these lawsuits vigorously.
Of course, it’s not all that surprising when you realize that they were protecting *their* financial interests (trying to lower the cost of the reimbursement that Medicare has to pay the drug manufacturers), but of course those costs are passed on to us (for those who haven’t crossed that particular Rubicon yet, Medicare Part D – the prescription part, is not free).
Anyways, as I said, the drug manufacturers lost at every turn because while they whined “The big bad government is huffing and puffing and blowing our massive profits down”, each court pointed out that big pharma’s participation in being a Medicare providers is *voluntary*.
So, they appealed to the Supreme Court.
As those of you who have been following me for a while will remember learning, to get the Supreme Court to hear your appeal you file an application with the Supreme Court for a Writ of Certiorari, and when you hear that “cert is denied” it means the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. When cert is denied it doesn’t mean ANYTHING about the merits of the case, it only means that the Supreme Court chose not to hear it.
And that is what happened here. Cert was denied, meaning that all of the decisions of all of the lower courts are *upheld*. And those decisions said, basically, “Suck it up, big pharma, you can either choose to stop ripping off the portion of the American public that is on Medicare, or you can just not access this massive market at all. The choice is yours, and that’s the point – you have a choice.”
Now, the Trump administration submitted a brief to the Supreme Court (as did the many little drugmaker pigs, living in their house built of bricks of cash), and I’m including the government’s brief for Notes from the Front members along with the other documents, so you can put it in your scrapbook as one of the times that this government did the right thing by the American people, even if it was out of their own self-interest.
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P.S. If you actually read all the way to the bottom please leave a comment that includes the words “cert denied”. It will show me that my efforts aren’t in vain and that people actually *do* read these things, and it will drive those who just skim crazy wondering just why everyone is talking about cert being denied (if they even know what that means, like you do)! ;~)
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