Trump’s plan would have some drug prices with what peer countries pay

Update May 12: Read more Fr. Executive ordinance and what it means here.

President Trump will sign an executive order on Monday to reduce some drug prices in the United States by adapting them to what other wealthy countries pay, he He said about social truth on Sunday evening.

The proposal he described, which himself cannot change the federal policy, is what he calls the price model “the most privileged nation.” Mr. Trump did not provide detailed information about this type of insurance, to which the plan would apply or how many drugs would be directed, but he indicated that the United States should pay the lowest price among peer countries.

“Our country will finally be treated honestly, and our citizens will be reduced by the numbers I have never thought about before,” he wrote in his social media.

Each such plan will most likely be challenged in court and it is not clear whether it will undergo a legal collection, especially without the action of the congress.

In his first semester, Mr. Trump unsuccessfully tried to introduce a version of this idea for Medicare, a health insurance program that includes 68 million Americans who are over 65 years elderly or have disability. This plan would utilize only 50 drugs administered in clinics and hospitals that are paid by Medicare. The federal court blocked him, ruling that the administration omitted the steps in the process of creating politics.

The pharmaceutical industry bitterly opposes this idea, which would almost certainly reduce its profits, and lobby against him, because discussions about the policy regained a couple in Washington in recent weeks. Companies warned that such a policy would lead them to spending less on research, depriving patients of up-to-date drugs.

“Government setting in any form is harmful to patients with American,” said in a statement Alex Schriver, an official of the main lobbying group in the drug industry. He added: “decision -makers should focus on repairing defects in the American system, not importing unsuccessful rules from abroad.”

Accepting the idea of ​​Mr. Trump distinguishes him from most Republicans, who were usually skeptical in relation to government prices. Democratic legislators proposed versions of this idea.

Ameet Sarpatwari, an expert in the field of pharmaceutical policy at Harvard Medical School, said that Mr. Trump used the idea of ​​a “populist appeal.”

Mr. Trump for a long time he complained that the United States pay much more than other wealthy countries for the same drugs. And he is right. In the United States, the prices of branded medicines are Three times higherOn average, like those in peer countries.

This applies to the fact that most of the research leading to up-to-date drugs takes place in American laboratories and hospitals.

Drug producers generate The vast majority Their world sales profits in the United States and usually develop their business strategy around the American market.

Pharmaceutical companies say that higher prices in the United States have an additional benefit: analyzes financed by the industry have shown that patients in the United States receive medicines fasterand with smaller insurance restrictions than in other countries.