President Trump vowed to bring “FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!” by deeply slashing prescription drug prices through an executive order he plans to sign Monday morning.
Trump promised to implement what he called “most favored nation” pricing, which would cut pharmaceutical and prescription drug prices “almost immediately, by 30% to 80%,” he announced in a Truth Social post Sunday night.
“I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World,” he added.
The US spends $400 billion on prescription drugs every year — often triple what other countries spend and typically more than any other nation.
Trump said he wants to get rid of the gap. He did not offer any details in his announcement — which he teased beforehand as “one of the most important and impactful” Truths he ever posted — but promised to deliver them in his executive order Monday morning.
“For many years the World has wondered why Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceuticals in the United States States of America were SO MUCH HIGHER IN PRICE THAN THEY WERE IN ANY OTHER NATION, SOMETIMES BEING FIVE TO TEN TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE SAME DRUG, MANUFACTURED IN THE EXACT SAME LABORATORY OR PLANT, BY THE SAME COMPANY???” he wrote. “It was always difficult to explain and very embarrassing because, in fact, there was no correct or rightful answer.”
With his announcement, the commander in chief is revisiting a similar proposal that he tried to implement during his first administration, that was blocked by federal courts and then rescinded by the Biden administration.
At the time, the courts noted that Medicare was barred from negotiating drug prices. However, the legal roadblock was removed in 2022 with the passage of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which gave Medicare the power to bargain over prices for a small number of drugs.
Trump’s first-term policy would have tied what Medicare pays for certain drugs prescribed in a doctor’s office to the lowest price paid among a peer group of economically advanced countries. The other countries in the peer group don’t pay the same steep amount that the US does for medications because their governments set the cost.
It would have saved $85 billion over seven years, according to the administration.
If the new policy is similar to the 2020 proposal, then it could also limit patients’ access to medications, experts told CNN. Access will be determined by how the policy is structured.
The pharmaceutical industry is expected to fiercely fight against the new policy.
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