Top 10 drugs 2019 Medicare Part D spending is ASTONISHING. Look at the $ amounts also.

#1 and #3 are blood thinners that are promoted widely by experts.
#2 is a drug that treats myeloma, which accounts for only 1% of all cancers.

4 of Top 10 are diabetes meds.
2 are insulin

Now I’m aware Medicare gets back rebates so I’m not sure of the exact dollar amount which Medicare actually spends. But the spending is massive regardless. It concerns all of us. Not sustainable. Plus spending on these drugs increased every year by ~10% for last 5 years
@ASlavitt

So when hematologists and diabetologists get their next CME lecture watch out. There’s a lot of promotional stuff.

I for one cannot believe these oral blood thinners are worth $11 billion per year in spending over Coumadin which is 50-100 times less expensive blood tests & all.

You can look at the source data yourself here. Straight from CMS. @CMSGov https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Information-on-Prescription-Drugs/MedicarePartD

Linking to earlier thread from today on why prescription drugs are so highly priced at launch, and how they still manage to increase prices year after year on the exact same product!! https://twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1343933889534980098