POLL: 83 PERCENT SUPPORT GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATING DRUG PRICES

Policy is complicated, but Americans seem to have a firm grasp of the concept of allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. It’s another one of the pieces Democrats are haggling over in the “social infrastructure” legislation, and it is extremely popular.

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 83 percent of the public favors allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices, for people both on Medicare and those in private insurance plans.

After being presented with arguments both in favor of the idea (that many people cannot afford their prescriptions) and against (that the policy could lead to fewer new drugs being developed), the overall results were unchanged. There was a small increase in the percentage saying they “somewhat” favored the policy after hearing the arguments, rather than “strongly” favoring it.