He signed a decree on Monday at the White House to reduce “between 30% and 80%“ the price of medicines paid by the federal government in the framework of public health programs. The order gives 30 days to pharmacists to assume those sales. If that period expires without an agreement, asks the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to equip those prices that are paid for those drugs in other developed countries. American patients disburse more money – often, up to three times more – when they go to the pharmacy.
The proposed mechanism to achieve that goal is that of “the most favored nation”, for which Trump wants the United States to pay the same as the country that pays the least, either by lowering prices or forcing pharmacists to collect more abroad.
It is not clear how he intends to achieve it, nor the content of the small print, but it is interpreted that the measure, with which the president presumed before the press of saving “billion dollars” to his administration, a figure that seems exaggerated, is limited to the drugs included in Medicare and Medicaid. Those popular programs, American social security version, protect
Trump appeared surrounded by his team in charge of Health, Kennedy included. He began by saying that this is not a measure against pharmacists, but “against countries” that force these companies to lower prices. “As of today, the United States will no longer subsidize medical care, we will not tolerate speculation or prices of large pharmaceuticals. But, I repeat, it was the countries that forced the great pharmacists to do things that, frankly, I am not sure they would like to do,” he added.
In his speech, he especially criticized the European Union, which he described as “brutal.” “The United States is subsidizing socialist health systems in countries such as Germany. Throughout Europe, because in many ways Europe is worse than China for us. They will have to pay more for their services of
To achieve this, it will order the United States commercial representative to investigate “foreign nations that extort US pharmaceutical companies.” To these, already his lobby, “the most powerful in the world,” he warned, demanded that the prices be low [el demócrata] Bernie Sanders and that they show that Trump is the “president who has done more to stand up to the oligarchs, despite what they say.”
The involvement of Congress
It is not the first time that Trump tries something like that. In his first term, a similar initiative died in court, when a judge considered that it was a movement for which the president needed the collaboration of the Congress. In his second presidency, the president is constantly trying to expand his executive branch, but, again, he needs the Capitol to bring the proposal to fruition, which is much more ambitious this time.
In his appearance before the press, the president contributed a fact: “The United States houses only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies obtain more than two thirds of their profits in the United States.” “Our country will finally receive a fair treatment and the medical care costs of our citizens will be reduced in figures never imagined before,” he had written in Trump in a message on his social network, Truth, on Sunday night. A couple of hours before, I had sent another post destined to create expectation: “My next Truth will be one of the most important and shocking ones I have never published.”
Taking into account the amount of fronts that the White House has open these days (and that includes two wars abroad and a commercial pact with China that materialized at dawn), when the great announcement came to time, it was somewhat surprising that it was about the pharmaceutical industry.
In it, Trump wondered how drugs can have higher prices “if they are equal and even occur in the same laboratory or plant, or by the same company.” In a later Truth, he said that the prices reduction would be “59%, or more.”
Trump’s messages were enough for the actions of American pharmaceuticals to fall before the official opening of the New York Stock Exchange, including those of Eli Lilly & Co., Pfizer Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Merck & Co. Inc. Las European In the middle of a general market rebound due to the announcement that China and the United States had signed a 90 -day truce in their commercial war. In Asia, the pharmaceutical subgroup of Japan’s Topix index registered its greatest daily loss since August. When the markets opened, the American companies, who feared a greater blow of the White House, were recovering from those previous losses.
The pharmaceutical industry firmly opposes the idea, which will almost surely imply losses for them, and their lawyers have pressed to avoid the announcement while the idea was gaining strength in Washington in recent weeks. These companies have warned that this policy would lead them to spend less in research, depriving patients of new medicines.
“Price setting by the government, in any way, is harmful to US patients,” pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, in a statement. He added: “Political leaders should focus on correcting the failures of the American system, not to import failed policies from abroad.”
Put pre – big pharma It is a policy that can be very popular in the United States, a country with a brutal health system, whose citizens often avoid going to the doctor, even those who are insured, to avoid scares. Recipe treatments, also the most basic, can also mean an unpleasant surprise for unavailable patients.
Once his appearance ended, there was the strangest moment in the morning. Trump began to walk towards the door, when someone reminded him that there was a decree to sign. The president turned around and sat at the small table that the White House allocates to the signing of the laws that come from Congress to comply with what he had come to do.
