The elephant in the room on Republicans’ drug pricing plans remains the failure to allow the biggest consumer of prescription drugs to negotiate prices with drug companies. Trump railed against other Republicans for refusing to get this done during the presidential primary.
This week Trump held a Rose Garden photo op to talk about what he’s going to do to lower drug prices and it didn’t include either of his popular campaign promises:
- allow the federal government directly negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare, and
- allow American consumers to import low-cost medicines from abroad.
So much for populism. Stock prices of drug companies soared immediately after Trump’s media show.
Note: The Democrats Better Deal introduced last summer calls for Medicare to negotiate with drug companies on pricing. The reason this is important is that other insurance companies tend to follow Medicare pricing guidelines.
Read more:
New York Times, “Trump’s Plan to Lower Drug Prices Diverges from Campaign Promises,” 5/11/2018
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