President Donald Trump promised to bring “FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!” by drastically lowering prescription medicine prices in an executive order he planned to sign Monday morning.
Trump vowed to impose “most favored nation” pricing, which would reduce pharmaceutical and prescription medicine prices “almost immediately, by 30% to 80%,” in a Truth Social post Sunday night.
“I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World,” he added.
Every year, the United States spends $400 billion on prescription medications, which is frequently quadruple the amount spent by other countries and usually more than any other nation.
Trump stated that he wants to eliminate the gap. He did not provide any details in his statement, which he had previously touted as “one of the most important and impactful” Truths he has ever revealed, but vowed to release them in his executive order Monday morning.
“For many years the World has wondered why Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceuticals in the United States States [sic] of America were SO MUCH HIGHER IN PRICE THAN THEY WERE IN ANY OTHER NATION, SOMETIMES BEING FIVE TO TEN TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE SAME DRUG, MANUFACTURED IN THE EXACT SAME LABORATORY OR PLANT, BY THE SAME COMPANY???” he wrote. “It was always difficult to explain and very embarrassing because, in fact, there was no correct or rightful answer.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke on Monday morning about President Trump signing an executive order aiming to cut drug prices by 30-80%.
“President Trump is signing an executive order today that is going to … reduce the cost of drugs in this country by more than half at least,” Leavitt said during an interview on Fox News.
“The United States of America is less than 5% of the world’s population, yet we purchase 57% of big pharma’s profit…America is going to pay a better rate and a fairer rate to the rest of the world,” she added.
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With his pronouncement, the commander-in-chief revisits a policy that he intended to implement during his first term but was unsuccessful in doing so. The courts rejected the policy and was later rescinded by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden of the United States.
During that period, the courts ruled that Medicare was not permitted to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs.
The legal obstacle, on the other hand, was removed in 2022 with the passage of the Inflation Reduction measure, which was enacted by the Democrats. This measure gave Medicare the right to negotiate prescription pricing for a certain selection of pharmaceuticals.
Under the legislation that Trump proposed during his first term, Medicare’s payment for some drugs that were prescribed by a doctor would have been connected to the lowest price paid by a group of advanced countries that are considered to be peers. Considering that the pricing of drugs are set by their respective governments, the other countries that are part of the peer group do not spend as much money on them as the United States does.
Over seven years, the government believes that it would have resulted in savings of $85 billion.
Experts told CNN that if the new law is like the 2020 one, it may limit patients’ access to drugs. The policy’s structure will determine access.
The pharmaceutical industry is expected to strongly protest the new regulations.