{"id":146219,"date":"2025-09-16T01:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146219\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T01:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:03:12","slug":"growing-use-of-glp-1-drugs-not-price-drives-spending-in-delaware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146219\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing use of GLP-1 drugs, not price, drives spending in Delaware"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Costs remain flat, but manufacturer rebates grow<\/p>\n<p>Delaware officials looked at prescribing data and cost information for fully insured residents who had health plans that they either got through an employer or purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.\n<\/p>\n<p>The report showed that after pharmaceutical rebates were applied, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.delaware.gov\/2025\/09\/04\/department-of-insurance-issues-first-ever-glp-1-report\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Delawareans paid<\/a> an average of $90 per script in 2020 and an average of $86 per script in 2023. Health plans covered another $400 per script almost every year.\n<\/p>\n<p>What did increase over time, Navarro said, is rebate amounts, or payments made from pharmaceutical manufacturers and drug makers to middlemen buyers like pharmacy benefit managers, who can share all or some of that money with health insurers.\n<\/p>\n<p>Rebates totaled, on average, about $340 per script in 2020, and grew to $473 per script in 2023.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, have been criticized nationally for retaining too much of those rebate payments, which can lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for patients.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the rebates go back to the consumer, or they go back to the state or other agencies, Medicare, Medicaid, then it\u2019s good,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cBut if it\u2019s going back to the PBMs who are just the middlemen, if that\u2019s the case, I have a real problem with that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The state analysis report can provide some clarity on the role GLP-1s play in the state\u2019s overall health care spending, he said, and dispel misconceptions that drug price jumps are at fault.\n<\/p>\n<p>Long term, he said the hope is that widespread access to these kinds of medications could ultimately reduce health care spending.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe savings for people who perhaps don\u2019t have to have surgeries or don\u2019t have to continue with other costly drugs,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cIt\u2019s still a little too early to measure that savings, but I\u2019m pretty confident it\u2019s going to be significant.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Costs remain flat, but manufacturer rebates grow Delaware officials looked at prescribing data and cost information for fully&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,9636,137,490,7716,18603],"class_list":{"0":"post-146219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-glp-1","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-medication","13":"tag-ozempic","14":"tag-weight-loss-drugs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}