New Program Lets Michigan Negotiate To Lower Medicaid Drug Costs

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drugs-8

By Doug Cunningham

An innovative new Medicaid program allows Michigan to negotiate with drug companies to potentially lower the costs of innovative and costly new drug therapies. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just gave Michigan approval to proceed with this plan. Michigan Department of Health and Human Service’s Bob Wheaton says so far Michigan and Oklahoma are negotiating the only two states to attempt this.

“I think the federal government is eager to see how this will work for Michigan and for Oklahoma and we’re eager to kinda test this out and see how well it works.”

Wheaton says he doesn’t know how long it will take to get the negotiated deals done and begin evaluating the results.

“We’re just now getting to the point where we’ll be negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies. I don’t really have a definite timeline as far as how soon this will be in place.”

Michigan’s annual Medicaid budget is about $17 billion.