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The Inflation Reduction Act lets Medicare negotiate prices on its highest-spend drugs. Here is how the program works, which drugs were picked first, and what it means for the spending data.

A guided tour of the drugs driving Medicare Part D spending: blood thinners, GLP-1 diabetes drugs and biologics. With the categories that consume the most program dollars. CMS 2023.

Which Medicare Part D drugs saw the biggest year-over-year jump in spending per dosage unit? Lagevrio led at +205%, with several generics close behind. CMS data year 2023.

What a dosage unit is, how CMS computes weighted average spending per dosage unit, and why it is not the price of a prescription. With worked examples from real Medicare Part D drugs.

The drugs that cost Medicare Part D the most: Eliquis tops total spending at $18.3B, while Ozempic spending nearly doubled. Full top-10 with per-unit cost, from CMS data year 2023.

A plain-English guide to the CMS Medicare Part D Spending by Drug dataset: what each field means, what 'total spending' includes, and what it does not tell you about the price you pay.