President Trump signed an executive order on Monday to “bring the prices Americans and taxpayers pay for prescription drugs in line with those paid by similar nations,” according to a White House news release.
“In case after case, our citizens pay massively higher prices than other nations pay for the same exact pill, from the same factory, effectively subsidizing socialism aboard [abroad] with skyrocketing prices at home,” President Trump said via a news release. “So we would spend tremendous amounts of money in order to provide inexpensive drugs to another country. And when I say the price is different, you can see some examples where the price is beyond anything—four times, five times different.”
According to the White House, the executive order directs the US Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce to take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States.
The order instructs the administration to communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy their drugs directly from manufacturers who sell to Americans at a “Most-Favored-Nation” price, bypassing middlemen.
According to the White House, if drug manufacturers fail to offer most-favored-nation pricing, the order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to:
(1) propose rules that impose most-favored-nation pricing; and
(2) take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anticompetitive practices.
The White House says the prices Americans pay for brand-name drugs are more than three times the price other OECD nations pay, even after accounting for discounts manufacturers provide in the US.
Image: President Donald J. Trump is seen at his desk Friday evening, December 21, 2018, in the Oval Office with a stack of documents awaiting his signature. Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead
