President Trump on Thursday claimed his recent “most favored nation” executive order could cause U.S. drug prices to “drop like a rock” in just a matter of weeks, saying the savings will be “incalculable.”
In a briefing to discuss the newly released Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report on children’s health, Trump ended the event by talking about the executive order he signed last week aimed at slashing prescription drug prices.
Trump shifted much of the blame for sky-high drug prices to other countries, saying they’re “a lot more vicious than us in terms of their representatives,” and he claimed the U.S. has been subsidizing the low cost of drugs in other nations.
“We are going to now get a reduction in drug costs of up to 89 percent in some cases, but 50 percent would be a low, a bad number,” Trump said. “It’s going to be massive numbers. It’s going to be incredible for Medicaid, incredible for all forms of health care. Medicare is going to be — it’s going to have a huge impact, so big that nobody can calculate it.”
Trump’s “most favored nation” policy laid out in his executive order aims to allow the U.S. to pay for prescription drugs at the same price as “the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.”
The executive order directs the Department of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to take “all appropriate action” against “unreasonable and discriminatory” policies in foreign countries that suppress drug prices abroad, according to a White House official.
It also directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to set “clear targets” for prescription drug and pharmaceutical price reductions within 30 days. This will set off a round of negotiations with drug companies and if nothing results from those talks, then Kennedy is authorized to impose “most favored nation” pricing.
“You can have, within a period of weeks, you can have drug costs that drop like a rock,” Trump said Thursday.
Addressing both Kennedy and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, Trump added, “OK, so you as a group, I have great confidence. And if you don’t do it, I am firing every single one. Good luck, guys.”
Pharmaceutical and biomedical trade groups have decried the order, including the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). It sued the Trump administration in 2020 when it attempted to enact a similar executive order. The group successfully blocked the order from being implemented.
“Most favored nation is a deeply flawed proposal that would devastate our nation’s small- and mid-size biotech companies – the very companies that are the leading drivers of medical innovation in the United States and the cornerstone of America’s biotechnology leadership,” John F. Crowley, BIO’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
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