["It would be absolutely unacceptable to force 57 million senior
citizens to pay $11.50 more a month in Medicare premiums due to
Biogens greed for a drug that has not been proven to be effective by
the scientific community."] [[link removed]]

SANDERS CALLS ON BIDEN TO SLASH 'OUTRAGEOUS' MEDICARE PREMIUM HIKE  
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Jake Johnson
December 3, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ "It would be absolutely unacceptable to force 57 million senior
citizens to pay $11.50 more a month in Medicare premiums due to
Biogen's greed for a drug that has not been proven to be effective by
the scientific community." _

Bernie Sanders, by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS ON Friday implored President Joe Biden to step in
and prevent a looming Medicare premium hike
[[link removed]] stemming
from the Food and Drug Administration's widely condemned approval of
an expensive—and possibly ineffective—Alzheimer's drug.

In a letter
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the president, Sanders (I-Vt.) noted that the pharmaceutical company
Biogen has placed a $56,000-per-year price tag on Adulhelm, a
treatment that the FDA approved in June despite experts' concerns
about the dearth of evidence showing it actually works to slow
Alzheimer's-induced cognitive decline.

"With Democrats in control of the White House, the House, and the
Senate, we cannot let that happen."

"Incredibly and immorally, Biogen... has set the price of this
Alzheimer's drug at $56,000 even though the Institute for Clinical and
Economic Review, an independent non-profit organization, has estimated
that the maximum price of this drug should be no higher than
$3,000-$8,400," the Vermont senator wrote. "This is a perfect example
of why Medicare should be negotiating drug prices with the
pharmaceutical industry."

Last month, as _Common Dreams_ reported
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the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that
monthly Medicare Part B premiums would be increased to $170.10 in
2022, up from the current level of $148.50.

CMS officials attributed around half of the planned hike—which would
be one of the largest in Medicare's history—to "additional
contingency reserves due to the uncertainty regarding the potential
use of the Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm™, by people with Medicare."

Without the Aduhelm-related increase—which Sanders is pushing Biden
to block—the monthly Medicare premium for 2022 would be around $159.

Medicare officials are still in the process of deciding whether the
program will cover the exorbitantly priced drug, which the Department
of Veterans Affairs decided
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to include on its national formulary, citing "lack of evidence of a
robust and meaningful clinical benefit."

Sanders called the planned premium increase "outrageous" and argued
that "it would be absolutely unacceptable to force 57 million senior
citizens to pay $11.50 more a month in Medicare premiums due to
Biogen's greed and thirst for massive profits for a drug that has not
been proven to be effective by the scientific community."

"The notion that one pharmaceutical company can raise the price of one
drug so much that it could negatively impact 57 million senior
citizens and the future of Medicare is beyond absurd," he continued.
"With Democrats in control of the White House, the House, and the
Senate, we cannot let that happen."

Specifically, Sanders called on Biden to direct the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services to "immediately prevent the $11.50 a month
increase in Medicare Part B premiums associated with Aduhelm from
going into effect next year."

The senator also urged Biden to instruct CMS to delay its approval of
Aduhelm and "take executive action to reinstate and expand the
reasonable pricing clause that was established in 1989 by the National
Institutes of Health requiring drug makers to charge reasonable prices
for prescription drugs and treatments that receive federal funding."

Public health campaigners have been warning for months
[[link removed]] that
the FDA's approval of Adulhelm—which led several agency advisers
to resign
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protest—could spell disaster for Medicare.

Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen's Health Research
Group, said
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a November statement that "all Part B Medicare beneficiaries soon will
be forced to bear significant financial burden as a direct result of
the FDA's reckless decision to approve [Aduhelm], a drug that has not
been proven to provide any clinically meaningful benefit to
Alzheimer's."

"To protect the many Medicare beneficiaries who cannot afford the
unacceptable 15% jump in Part B premiums," Carome added, "CMS must
promptly announce that it will exclude [Aduhelm] from coverage under
the Medicare program until there is definitive evidence that the drug
provides substantial... cognitive benefit to Alzheimer’s disease
patients."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

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