On September 17, 2023, Paragon’s Theo Merkel, was quoted in The Huffington Post‘s article “Why Republican Presidential Contenders Are Mostly Silent About Biden’s Signature Prescription Drug Policy.”
From the article:
Theo Merkel, a former special assistant for economic policy to Trump and a key figure in the administration’s pharmaceutical policymaking, faults Democrats for insisting on the inclusion of rebates for drug costs that exceeded the rate of inflation. “The cap on inflation alienated many from the other major reforms on which there was a lot of consensus,” said Merkel, who now runs the private health reform initiative at the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank.
Merkel encourages the next GOP president to repeal the price negotiation part of the law and preserve out-of-pocket cost caps while advancing “other reforms that would push drug prices lower without depending on political appointees and bureaucrats to determine which drugs have value and how much.”
Some Republicans evidently believe that Merkel’s position is smart politics. McConnell, for example, has railed against Biden’s policy of “prescription drug socialism,” warning that it will result in the development of hundreds of fewer drugs. And House Republicans plan to hold a hearing later this month on how the IRA’s “price setting scheme means fewer cures for patients.”
