“Prescription drugs continue to bring significant value to patients around the world by treating and curing disease. There is no better example of that than the COVID-19 vaccines which have saved millions of lives worldwide just in the last year. In 2020, when people could not or would not visit their doctors for regular or preventative care, the one constant that kept them healthy and out of the hospital was their continued ability to access the medicines they needed to keep them healthy. Unfortunately, this report does not measure healthcare spending that is saved because of prescription drug uptake and adherence.
What we do know is that CHIA’s prescription drug expenditure growth data, net of rebates, is way out of line with the national data where net prescription drug spending only increased 3% during the same time period. Regrettably, CHIA’s data about prescription drug spending, specifically regarding average rebate levels across payers including MassHealth, is not included in this report despite its inclusion in previous reports. For a report that intends to inform public policy decisions and has significantly detailed data breakdowns for other areas of healthcare expenditures, intentionally leaving out these critical data seems counterintuitive and counterproductive.”