Trump Announces Pharmaceutical Drug Price Controls

President Donald Trump recently announced plans to sign an executive order that will peg the price of medical drugs to that of the country with the lowest price in the world. 

In a Truth Social post, President Trump explained that his initiative would cut medical drug prices by 30% to 80%.

The US has a relatively free-market approach to healthcare. 

Other countries’ healthcare systems, however, feature the government as the single buyer and seller of drugs, which enables the control of the price of drugs as pharmaceutical companies have no other purchasers of drugs to turn to.  

Trump complained that drug prices in the US far exceed those of many other countries to make up for the artificially lower prices other countries enjoy due to their government-run healthcare sector fixing prices on drugs. 

“For many years the World has wondered why Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceuticals in the United States of America were SO MUCH HIGHER IN PRICE THAN THEY WERE IN ANY OTHER NATION,” said Trump. 

In effect, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report describes that US drug prices can be double or triple that of drug prices in other countries. 

To eliminate such stark price contrast, Trump claimed he would force pharmaceuticals to raise their prices in other countries by capping the permitted price of drugs sold in the US to the price of the country with the lowest price for drugs. 

“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,” said Trump. 

“Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%,” continued Trump. “They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!”

While some lawmakers have celebrated Trump’s initiative, others have criticized it on free trade grounds, arguing price controls will hurt, not help, American drug purchasers. 

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich derided price controls on medical drugs, claiming Trump’s plans will “make things worse.”

Gingrich argued that eliminating burdensome regulations and wasteful programs like Medicaid, not Trump’s price control initiative, will solve the issue of skyrocketing drug prices.

“If we want lower drug prices and to make other countries pay their fair share, we’ve got to cut out the middlemen and rip out the red tape,” said Gingrich. “The current system is built to keep prices high.”