Last week, we spoke about the Senate health committee chairman Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) and member Patty Murray (Washington) introducing a draft package of legislation. The draft packages goal is to cut healthcare cost (Click “here” if you want to go to that blog to catch up on that news).
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced, at the World Health Assembly, that a new resolution to improve the transparency of pricing for medicines, vaccines, and other health products is on the way.
The resolution advised member states to publicly share information on the prices paid by the government and other buyers for drugs, products, and additional pricing determinants. The goal here is to help the general population make more of an educated and informed decision and for more affordable pricing to expand across all products.
In past WHO resolutions, they have looked for particular components of transparency for healthcare products. However, a recent request was to examine the impact of pricing on cancer medicines.
“This resolution ties these aspects together to request transparency of inputs across the value chain of health products and their impact on actual prices paid,” a WHO spokesperson told FierceHealthcare.
Now, to make sure these goals are being met, WHO will provide a progress report back to the assembly in the year 2021. The report will include information on monitoring the impact of price transparency and the feasibility of web-based tools for sharing information. Member states will have platforms to share their progress as well.
“Member states must increase transparency in accordance with their national and regional legal frameworks and contexts, but the resolution promotes public sharing on net prices, inputs across the value chain, patent status information, and other relevant information to improve access.” Affordable healthcare is a huge must, no matter the size of the country, the population in that country, or how much that country is worth. WHO is attempting to help those who can not help themselves because of poor government choices.
However, reforming the United States system will be a significant group effort by the government, provider, and payer. The complex payer mix in the U.S. makes the government visibility on the actual prices paid very difficult. WHO did note that the member state has already cooperated in moving toward a common goal of bettering healthcare.
Stay connected for regular updates on important news and legislation. Subscribe below.
