After President Donald Trump signed his latest executive order, he anticipates that drug prices are going to “drop like a rock.”
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 this month.
“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 released them in his executive order last week.
“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 after the president’s post about him signing an executive order aiming to cut drug prices significantly.
“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.
The order instructs the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to negotiate lower prices with drug companies, but if a deal is not reached, then the order will tie what the United States pays for drugs to the prices paid by other nations.
On Thursday, when he signed the order, he predicted that drug prices would drop quickly.
“We are going to now get a reduction in drug costs of up to 89% in some cases, but 50% would be a low, a bad number,” the president said on Thursday. “It’s going to be massive numbers.
“It’s going to be incredible for Medicaid, incredible for all forms of healthcare. Medicare is going to be — it’s going to have a huge impact, so big that nobody can calculate it. You can have, within a period of weeks, you can have drug costs that drop like a rock,” he said.
“You can have, within a period of weeks, you can have drug costs that drop like a rock,” Trump said. “I have great confidence. And if you don’t do it, I am firing every single one. Good luck, guys,” he quipped to Kennedy and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America CEO Stephen J. Ubl, a leading pharmaceutical lobbyist, warned that the order could do damage to the research the drug companies do, Newsmax reported.
“Importing foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare with no guarantee that it helps patients or improves their access to medicines,” he said. “It jeopardizes the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America, making us more reliant on China for innovative medicines.”
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