House Passes Ban on Pricing Metrics in Federal Health Programs

Feb. 7, 2024, 4:59 PM UTC

Medicaid and other federal health programs would be prohibited from using quality-adjusted life years and similar metrics under legislation the House passed Wednesday.

The House voted 211-208 on a bill (H.R. 485) extending the current ban on QALY metrics from Medicare to include all government health programs including Medicare Advantage and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

QALYs, which measure the effectiveness of a drug by weighing how many more years of life the medicine could give a person, are regarded on both sides of the aisle as discriminatory against people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. But no Democrats ...

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