A hepatitis C treatment and a form of insulin led Medicare drug spending, adding up to more than $11 billion in 2015, according to an update of a federal database that highlights the drugs the government spent the most money on overall and per person -- and which ones had the biggest price increases.
Of particular concern is a rise in price of some generics, a class of drugs that are intended to decrease drug prices and spending. Drugs that were responsible for large amounts of overall spending tended to see smaller increases that gradually increased the government outlay. In one outlier, the price of the hepatitis C treatment Harvoni decreased slightly in 2015, even as it led overall spending.
