June 6, 2023
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, pharmaceutical company Merck filed a lawsuit against the Medicare program in an effort to stop progress being made on drug pricing in Medicare through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law by President Biden in 2022.
Judy Stein, Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, stated: “This is yet another example of an extremely profitable industry going to great lengths to preserve its profits at the expense of a law that takes reasonable measures to rein in the costs of a limited set of drugs that have been on the market for some time.”
The IRA is projected to save the Medicare program billions of dollars, shoring up Medicare’s finances while reducing out-of-pocket costs for people with Medicare. Stein added: “If this suit is successful, it will be bad for Medicare and bad for Medicare beneficiaries.”