{"id":1945899,"date":"2023-06-06T19:32:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T23:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/merck-sues-biden-administration-over-sham-drug-price-negotiation-program\/"},"modified":"2023-06-06T19:33:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T23:33:17","slug":"merck-sues-biden-administration-over-sham-drug-price-negotiation-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/merck-sues-biden-administration-over-sham-drug-price-negotiation-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Merck sues Biden admin over &#8216;sham&#8217; drug price negotiation program."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmerck-sues-biden-administration-over-sham-drug-price-negotiation-program%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1945899&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Merck Sues US Government Over Medicare\u2019s New Drug Pricing Program<\/h2>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0606\/57e566bd-8977-4183-a082-9c8274b41266\/audio.mp3?length=2901357&#038;duration=242\"><\/div>\n<p>Merck &#038; Co. has filed a lawsuit against the US government, claiming that Medicare\u2019s new program, established under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is a \u201csham\u201d that violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law in August of last year, allowing Medicare to directly negotiate pricing for certain expensive drugs.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt involves neither genuine \u2018negotiations\u2019 nor real \u2018agreements.\u2019 Rather, once HHS unilaterally selects a drug for inclusion in the program, its manufacturer is compelled to sign an \u2018agreement\u2019 promising to sell the drug to Medicare beneficiaries at whatever \u2018fair\u2019 price the agency dictates,\u201d according to the court filing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that the new program is a \u201csham\u201d as it grants the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) too much power to impose its preferred price.<\/p>\n<p>The IRA mandates the US government to negotiate prices for specific prescription drugs beginning in 2026 as part of the \u201cDrug Price Negotiation Program\u201d for Medicare. Any drugmaker that fails to comply with negotiation requirements is subject to excise taxes and civil penalties.<\/p>\n<p>Through these negotiations, the Biden administration has promised to save <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/merck-sues-us-government-halt-medicare-drug-price-negotiation-2023-06-06\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$25 billion<\/a> annually by 2031.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Using these severe penalties, drug companies are being forced into \u201cpolitical Kabuki theater,\u201d Merck argued.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Merck argues that requiring companies to sign voluntary agreements to concede that the prices are fair violates the First Amendment\u2019s protections for free speech. The drug company also argues that the Fifth Amendment obliges the federal government to provide \u201cjust compensation\u201d when taking property. Merck contends that Medicare is seeking to obtain prescription drugs without paying fair market value.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time a drugmaker is trying to challenge the law, and more are anticipated to follow suit.<\/p>\n<p>Merck filed the lawsuit against the HHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5192624\" style=\"width: 2232px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/04\/13\/id5192624-Xavier-Becerra-1_JF_03092022-1200x795.jpg\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/04\/13\/id5192624-Xavier-Becerra-1_JF_03092022-1200x795.jpg\" alt=\"Xavier Becerra\" width=\"2232\" height=\"1478\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5192624\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a><br \/>\n\t<\/figure>\n<h3>\u2018Drugs Are Not Sodas or Jeans\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>The lawsuit was expected, given previous signals from the pharmaceutical industry that it intended to sue the federal government for not complying with the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kir<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merck &amp; Co. sued the U.S. government, alleging that Medicare&#8217;s new program, established under the Inflation Reduction Act, violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The IRA was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August 2021, enabling Medicare to implement the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":1945900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[4496,3620,5642,24206,22940,7145,6644,6626,5178],"class_list":["post-1945899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-admin","tag-biden","tag-drug","tag-merck","tag-negotiation","tag-price","tag-program","tag-sham","tag-sues"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1945899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1945900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1945899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1945899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1945899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}