You first heard this suggested on my show: I have been focusing on putting the consumer back in charge of health care spending as a way of controlling costs. As part of that agenda, a guest suggested that drug ads on TV list the drug PRICE. This may soon become a reality.
Drug manufacturers may have to start disclosing the price of their product in their television commercials after a push by the Trump administration.
The new regulation says that any drug over the price of $35 needs to show a price at the end of its commercial.
Alex Azar, Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary (who appeared last week on my show), says, "We will not wait for an industry, with so many conflicting and perverse incentives, to reform itself."
Critics of the new rule include the CEO of a large drug trade group Stephen Ubl who says, "Putting list prices in isolation in the advertisements themselves would be misleading or confusing."
As my guest said, this information would be MUCH more helpful to the consumer than the list of side effects. Now that the gag rule has been taken off (your pharmacist can now suggest lower priced alternatives the drug you've been prescribed), knowing the prices are the next step in lowering drug costs.