The IRA's Drug Negotiation Mechanism Meets the Rebate Industrial Complex

The IRA's Drug Negotiation Mechanism Meets the Rebate Industrial Complex

The Inflation Reduction Act’s drug negotiation provision represents the federal government’s most direct intervention into pharmaceutical pricing since the creation of Medicare Part D in 2003, when Congress famously prohibited CMS from negotiating drug prices at all. The intellectual reversal is remarkable. The practical implications, however, are more complex than either the law’s architects or its opponents have fully acknowledged — particular…