Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump has announced a plan to lower prices for some prescription drugs, saying it would stop unfair practices that force Americans to pay much more than people in other countries for the same medications.
"We are taking aim at the global freeloading that forces American consumers to subsidise lower prices in foreign countries through higher prices in our country," Trump said in a speech Thursday at the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Same company. Same box. Same pill. Made in the exact same location, and you would go to some countries and it would be 20 per cent of the cost of what we pay," said Trump, who predicted the plan will save Americans billions.
"We're fixing it."
"These proposals are to the detriment of American patients."
Drug pricing expert Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Center for Health Policy and Outcomes called the plan "a pretty substantive proposal" but one that faces "serious political challenges."
But that's "quite literally the opposite of what is being proposed. What is being proposed is that we freeload off of other countries' ability to negotiate more effectively."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said if Trump wants to save seniors money he should seek congressional approval for Medicare to negotiate prices for its main prescription drug program, "Part D."
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said "it's hard to take the Trump administration and Republicans seriously about reducing health care costs for seniors two weeks before the election."
Matt Eyles, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, said: "Drug prices are out of control, and we commend the Administration for its continued commitment to reduce drug prices."
"This is not the end of the road, the end of the journey," he said. "There is more coming."
Trump has harshly criticised the pharmaceutical industry, once asserting that the companies were "getting away with murder."
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