President Donald Trump will announce a plan to reduce the costs of American prescription drugs by linking the amount that the government pays for certain drugs at prices paid abroad, according to an official of the administration familiar with the issue – a strategy he pursued without success during his first mandate.
Trump should sign an executive decree at the beginning of next week who will ask federal health officials to adopt a pricing model “the most favored nation” for certain drugs covered by maladie, which means that the United States would not pay more than the lowest prices paid by other rich countries, said the manager, who obtained anonymity because they were not internal deliberations.
The plan to sign the decree was reported for the first time by Politico.
In the United States, prescription drug prices are notoriously higher than in other countries – up to 10 times more than in other countries of similar size and wealth, according to the Rand Corporation, a reflection group on public policy.
Trump first attempted to implement this policy in 2020 in the context of a broader effort of his administration to reduce the costs of drugs, but he was interrupted by a federal judge following legal action in the pharmaceutical industry.
The plan would have linked the prices of medication medication part B – which are drugs administered in a health facility, such as chemotherapy drugs – that countries like Canada, Germany and British salary.
Administration at the time Estimated that it would save us more than $ 85 billion over seven years.
It is not clear if Trump’s new plan will again only target Medicare drugs share B or will include other drugs covered by the program.
The administration manager said that the proposal had not been finalized and could still change. The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
Health policy experts supported Trump’s approach, arguing that pharmaceutical companies should be forced to correspond to the prices they give to other countries.
“I do not see an excuse to explain why prices should be everywhere, and we end up being billed the most,” said Arthur Caplan, chief of the medical ethics division of Nyu Langone Medical Center in New York. “If this can do something on what is clearly an emergency, which is the ever -increasing cost of drugs as a major inflation source, I am for that.”
However, experts also doubted that the new policy would resist the decline in the pharmaceutical industry.
“I am not sure that the new decree will be better discussed,” said Stacie Dusetzina, professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Tricia Neuman, Executive Director of the Medicare Policy Program at KFF, a health policies research group, said it would probably have public support if it was implemented.
In the United States, more than 3 out of 4 adults claim that the cost of drugs is unaffordable, according to a KFF survey.
“The idea of ensuring that the United States does not pay more than many similar countries, but it is controversial and will probably be faced with fierce opposition from the pharmaceutical industry,” said Neuman.
In a statement, Alex Schriver, spokesperson for pharmaceutical research and America’s manufacturers, the commercial group of the drug industry which has filed the pursuit against the rule of pricing for Trump’s medicines, said the Trump administration should rather focus on so-called pharmacy directors to treat high costs of drugs.
PBMS, also known as Middlemen, works with insurance companies to negotiate reduced prices with pharmaceutical companies in exchange for inclusion of drugs in their coverage. In theory, PBMs are supposed to save money from patients, but they were the target of American legislators following the government’s results accusing them of inflating the price of drugs.
Caplan noted that even if the pharmaceutical industry dates back to the executive order, the administration always has another tool at its disposal: negotiations on the prices of medication medication.
The provision, signed by President Joe Biden through the law on the reduction of inflation, allows Medicare to negotiate prices on the most expensive drugs.
It is estimated that the first series of negotiations allowing the insurance of $ 6 billion in 2026, when prices come into force.
In the last days of the Biden administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the next series of drugs for price negotiations. It is not known if the Trump administration continues the negotiations.
Caplan said the administration should support both policies.
“It’s a walk and chewing gum at the same time,” he said. “You can go after these price disparities and opt for the least expensive comparable price.”
Last month, CMS rejected a proposal from the Biden era for Medicare to cover weight loss drugs. This decision would have saved money to patients, but cost the government about $ 25 billion over 10 years.
