Probing the Legal Arguments in the Drug Industry’s Challenges to Medicare Drug Price Negotiations

Kaiser Family Foundation

With the Biden administration’s recent announcement of the first 10 drugs to be negotiated for Medicare as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), an array of legal challenges from the pharmaceutical industry is potentially the biggest obstacle to implementation.

In court filings, individual drugmakers and the industry’s main lobbying group contend that the negotiations process is unconstitutional in a variety of ways, from violating freedom of speech to unlawful government seizure and excessive fines. They also continue to argue, as they did in the debate over the IRA, that requiring companies to negotiate the prices of drugs with the government will impede the development of new drugs.

On Tuesday, September 12 at 12 p.m. ET, two legal experts and a health policy expert will join Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, for a 45-minute discussion about the legal issues underpinning these lawsuits and how they intersect with the policy goals of the legislation.

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