() President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at knocking down prescription drug prices by implementing a “most favored nation” policy.
The policy would cap costs based on other countries’ prescription prices, which Trump claimed could drop prices for Americans by 30% to 80%.
“The rest of the world’s going to have to pay a little bit more, and America’s going to pay a lot less,” Trump said.
Trump made the announcement from the White House on Monday alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya.
The order would likely only impact certain drugs covered by Medicare and given in a health care office think infusions that treat cancer and other injectables, the Associated Press reported.
“For years, pharmaceutical and drug companies have said that research and development costs were what they are and, for no reason whatsoever, they had to be borne by America alone,” Trump said. “Not anymore, they don’t.”
Kennedy praised the policy, and Oz said that health leaders would work over the next month to figure out what the new prices could look like by approaching pharmaceutical companies.
“We’re asking companies to voluntarily give us the same best price in wealthy countries that they offer elsewhere,” Makary told on Monday. “But we also are keeping reserving the right to use the full regulatory and policy power of this administration to make it happen.”
Trump’s proposal has drawn backlash from the pharmaceutical industry.
PhRMA president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl said the “Foreign First Pricing scheme is a bad deal for American patients,” according to partner The Hill.
“Importing foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare, with no guarantee that it helps patients or improves their access to medicines. It jeopardizes the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America, making us more reliant on China for innovative medicines,” Ubl said.
Similar protests followed Trump’s 2020 attempt to do the same. Industry leaders argued his methods would give foreign governments an upper hand in deciding how much people pay in the U.S.
Trump has touted immediate savings, but Health and Human Services is limited in its control of drug pricing. It has the most authority over the drug prices it pays for Medicare and Medicaid, which covers roughly 80 million poor and disabled Americans.
The price that millions of Americans covered by private insurance pay for drugs is harder for the agency to manipulate. Republicans introduced legislation late Sunday that would cut Medicaid spending significantly as part of Trump’s massive tax bill.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
