Dr. Oz on lowering drug prices, Biden healthcare policy and MMR vaccines

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator, spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday morning about a 3.1% drop year over year in drug prices and medicare beneficiaries having access to GLP-1 medications.

When asked if the U.S. is going to see a further drop in drug prices, and if so, how much and who's going to benefit, Dr. Oz said:

"I think drug prices are going to continue to drop. This is just what the doctor ordered. To be clear, this is the number one issue that Americans fear about healthcare costs because it comes out of their pocket. So let's put this in context. If you're sitting at home right now and you go to a drugstore because a doctor prescribed a medication, especially a branded product that might change your life for the better, hopefully. One in three times, roughly, you will leave empty-handed because you can't afford the medication. Now, when you see drug prices drop as fast as they have over the past year- the fastest drop we've had in 63 years and it's accelerating, which is why I'm confident that it's going to continue. You change that dynamic. Now, the question is why? How did that happen? And one of the realities is that we leave empty-handed from the drugstore because our drugs cost much more than they cost in other countries. And the president recognizes, and it really bothered him, and it has for years. The real question is why didn't we deal with it earlier? So the president gave us a very clear mandate at the very beginning of the administration because these processes take time. He said, 'I don't want you to hurt productivity, creativity, innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, but they are not allowed to charge three times more for the exact same products made often in U.S. facilities than they pay in Europe or Asia.' So we went after this issue. Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing is the result. We're not telling companies what they can charge. We're saying, whatever you charge overseas, you got to charge here. No more of this global freeloading. And thankfully, the 17 companies representing 85% of the drug sector all came on board. And here's the good news, their market capitalization on Wall Street actually went up because they- the market wants stability. What we want is better prices for the American people, and we got it. And just to put it in context, this increasing savings that we're seeing, the additional amount of savings we're getting, primarily driven not just by having the medications at Most-Favored-Nation pricing, but available to the American people and TrumpRx.gov, is seismic in its nature."

During the interview, Brennan and Oz talked about a 2022 Biden era law that allowed Medicare to haggle with drug makers, with Brennan saying Oz has now embraced it and has made sure it's not doing that.

This prompted her to ask why, to which Oz said:

"The risks of the IRA, which is the- the law that drove this, is that it'll coerce companies to do things they don't want to do, so they'll just stop innovating. Now, the way you avoid that is by negotiating fairly with these companies. The first year of the program it wasn't actually that effective in saving money. This past year, we got aggressive in the pricing, but again, doing it in a fair way, so we're able to double the savings for the American people. I want to point out that drug prices and affordability are bipartisan beneficial issues."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Oz talked about President Donald Trump calling the MMR vaccine "lethal."

This led Brennan to ask Oz to clarify President Trump's comments, and he said, "The president wants Americans, and he said this many times, to get vaccinated as their doctors recommend, as long as they have a choice in the matter, the challenge we're running into is that many states have not clarified that, and actually, it's harder for parents to ask these difficult questions."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Oz, click here.