President Trump understands that middlemen, government bureaucracy, and European price controls make Americans pay more than other advanced countries for prescription drugs.
The post Trump Will Bring America First Drug Prices by Knocking Out the Middlemen, Making Europe Pay Its Fair Share appeared first on Breitbart.
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America First drug pricing has begun.
President Trump promised to lower drug prices in America. Contrary to typical politicians who like to score points with false promises but never get anything done, President Trump understands that middlemen, government bureaucracy, and European price controls make Americans pay more than other advanced countries for prescription drugs. And unlike past presidents, he’s doing something about it.
The Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) middlemen drive up drug prices by roughly 50 percent. PBMs and big insurance companies take 25 percent. Along with massive hospitals, they abuse a little-known government program called 340B to take another $66 billion or 10 percent. Government middlemen take the rest through statutory rebates and fees.
“We’re going to knock out the middleman. We’re going to get drug costs down at levels that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said in December. “The horrible middleman that makes more money, frankly, than the drug companies, and they don’t do anything except they’re a middleman.”
PBMs negotiate drug prices and rebates with manufacturers, but instead of passing savings on to patients, they pocket most of them. This unseemly practice is one reason why Trump and the Federal Trade Commission are cracking down on the biggest PBMs.
President Trump will eliminate PBMs outright or significantly reduce their influence over drug pricing. During his first term, the Trump rebate rule would have forced PBMs to deliver billions and billions of savings for seniors. Biden ditched Trump’s rebate rule in his so-called Inflation Reduction Act. It cost seniors billions and made PBMs billions more. Reinstating the rebate rule will return billions to seniors and lower their drug prices.
This week, Trump signed an executive order to make healthcare prices transparent. “When healthcare prices are hidden, large corporate entities like hospitals and insurance companies benefit at the expense of American patients. Price transparency will lower healthcare prices and help patients and employers get the best deal on healthcare,” said the White House. Trump will expose 340B abuse through this executive order and lower drug prices even more by making the middlemen show their true prices.
Trump will bring lower drug prices by making Europe pay its fair share. Trump will end global free-riding and correct the long-standing imbalance in drug pricing in which European nations fail to pay their fair share for cures developed in America.
For decades, Americans have shouldered the high cost of drug development while Europe and other wealthy nations impose price controls on American exports that force pharmaceutical companies to sell below market value. This shifts the burden of research and development costs onto American consumers. It also creates shortages and deprives European patients of life-saving cures. Europe used to be the medical innovation leader. Price controls killed that. Right now, America is the medical innovation leader. But if we adopt European price controls, our leadership will end and China will take over. China is already taking steps to ensure that happens, betting on our failure to lead.
Trump will renegotiate international trade agreements to pressure foreign governments to pay fair market prices. Just as he compelled NATO allies to “pay their fair share”, Trump will hold European nations accountable for paying fair prices for pharmaceuticals—rather than relying on American taxpayers.
An America First drug policy will bring much-needed transparency and competition to the pharmaceutical market. By reforming PBMs and 340B, curbing the influence of middlemen, and ending global free-riding, the Trump administration will deliver the lower prescription drug prices that Americans need. That’s America First drug pricing.
