It’s no secret that one of the main industries buying our politicians is the Pharma industry. It doesn’t matter that they are subsidized by the American taxpayer in part (gov’t funded research), they still insist on hitting us with the highest drug prices in the world.
Well today President Trump spoke to reporters and told them that he will issue an executive order and finally bring Pharma to heel.
The Washington Examiner reported that the White House is writing an executive order that would reduce what the U.S. pays for drugs so that it is more in line with the lowest price paid elsewhere in the world, the President told reporters on Friday.
“As you know, for years and years other nations paid less for drugs than we do,” President Trump stated on Friday at the White House. “Sometimes by 60-70%.”
“We’re working on it right now, we’re working on a favored nations clause, where we pay whatever the lowest nation’s price is.”
“Why should other nations — like Canada — but why should other nations pay much less than us? They’ve taken advantage of the system for a long time, Pharma.”
The President claimed that the announcement was coming “very shortly” but he didn’t provide other details about how the plan would work. A “favored nations clause” refers to a contract in which a seller gives buyers the same best terms that it offers to other buyers.
Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed an “international drug pricing index” that would help Medicare pay similar rates for drugs as what other countries do.
President Trump has been eager to deliver on his campaign promise to lower drug prices in our country, and has decried what he calls a “global freeloading” system in which drug companies are able to offer their products at a lower cost to other countries by charging the U.S. more.
Trump vowed when he was running for president in 2016 that he would go after pharmaceutical companies, whom he said “are getting away with murder,” and floated the idea of giving the government more control in Medicare to directly negotiate prices.
