The art of the deal? Why a money-back guarantee for drugs is a bad idea
'Value-based pricing' for drugs sounds appealing, but it's unlikely to lower patient costs and may let pharma evade a tougher crackdown on prices.
President Trump likes to boast that he mastered the “art of the deal.”
But one option his administration is considering to encourage lower drug prices, which surfaced in a recent draft executive order, may not be much of a deal for consumers.
The concept has a clunky name — value-based pricing — but it’s fairly simple. One increasingly popular version works like this: A drug maker refunds some money to an insurer if its medicine fails to improve patient health or prevent a costly incident, such as a heart attack.
