On Monday, President Trump resurrected a plan to index American prescription medication costs to those of other developed countries.
The administration’s plans for enforcing a so-called “most-favored nation” policy remain unclear in light of his executive order, which was initially published by HEADLINESFOREVER.
Trump stated at a news conference on Monday that “research and development costs have been what they are” for years, according to pharmaceutical and medicine industries. The United States was single-handedly obligated to bear them, and for no apparent reason. They no longer do.
The executive order mandates that the United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, to prevent foreign countries from engaging in what the White House calls “purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes” within the United States.
The federal health department is required to provide most-favored-nation pricing objectives to pharmaceutical companies within 30 days. This measure, according to the White House, will bring American costs closer to those of “comparably developed nations.” If that fails, Trump has ordered Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of health and human services, to submit rules to establish most-favored-nation pricing.
A day after Trump said the United States will “pay the same price as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World” on Truth Social, he announced on Monday that pharmaceutical costs will be slashed by 59%.
Trump made it clear at his news conference that the cost will be determined by the prices paid by other rich nations.
Trump blogged on Sunday evening about how prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, by 30% to 80%. He promised this reduction practically soon. “They will rise up all over the world to level the playing field and finally bring FAIRNESS TO THE USA!”
Setting maximum permitted pricing for pharmaceuticals based on costs outside the U.S. would reduce average drug prices by more than five percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment from last October.
The president warned that “Big Pharma will either voluntarily abide by this principle or we will use the power of the federal government to ensure we are paying the same price as other countries” if needed.
He seemed to imply that the policy’s ultimate objective was to eliminate pharmacy benefit managers—the middlemen that negotiate prescription costs on behalf of insurance and companies—so that Americans may buy their medications directly from the manufacturer at the most favored country price.
Drug companies have long held them responsible for the exorbitant costs that Americans bear.
Trump, Kennedy, and other heads of health agencies made the announcement at the White House, and the pharmaceutical industry is certain to file lawsuits against the initiative. Due to the administration’s failure to adhere to regulation processes required by Congress, a federal judge invalidated Trump’s most-favored-nation policy in 2020, during his first term in office.
Statement issued by Steve Ubl, CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm of the brand name drug industry, characterized the Foreign First Pricing plan as terrible news for American patients. “It puts at risk the hundreds of billions of dollars that our member companies had planned to invest in the United States, and it makes us more dependent on China for new drugs.”