New bipartisan legislation introduced in the House aims to reform Medicaid to enable the use of value-based purchasing agreements in Medicaid.
The Medicaid VBP Act, released Tuesday, aims to ensure new treatments such as gene therapies would be administered under Medicaid via a value-based agreement that reimburses drug makers based on the outcomes the drug provides.
“For too long, policy has not caught up with reality and it’s the patients who are suffering the consequences,” said Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, one of the chief sponsors of the legislation, in a statement. “Drug developers are taking extraordinary risks to invest in these groundbreaking therapies, which could easily cost millions of dollars per patient once they reach the market. Without an affordable way for payers to purchase these sometimes-curative drugs, it will be nearly impossible for patients to access them.”