Why weren’t prescription drugs covered when Medicare was established?

Why were drugs not included in Medicare in 1965? And the answer is, because drugs didn’t matter. They were not all that good, and they didn’t do a lot…

We now see pharmaceutical care as the heart of treating someone; not so then.

Steven Grossman, Executive Director – Alliance for a Stronger FDA

It’s amazing how much progress there has been in pharmaceutical treatments in recent years; this is not something that should be taken for granted.

The quotation above was from the Brookings Institution panel on Hatch-Waxman at 40. You can watch the full video here.