Health policy experts support the ‘most favored nation’ plan, but doubt it will withstand likely legal challenges
The White House is unveiling an aggressive drug pricing strategy targeting pharmaceutical companies, promising to dramatically cut prescription drug costs for American consumers.
Donald Trump condemned the current pricing system as a “redistribution” that has allowed drugmakers to exploit US patients and signed an executive order that he says will lead to matching lower drug prices abroad.
“We are subsidizing others’ healthcare, where they paid a small fraction of what we pay,” the president said in a press conference on Monday, flanked by health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and centers for Medicare and Medicaid services administrator Mehmet Oz.
“Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies make more than two-thirds of their profits in America,” Trump said. “That’s not a good thing.”
Examples Trump pointed to included how a single breast cancer drug costs $16,000 in the US, but just $1,600 in Australia, and how the weight loss drug Ozempic costs 10 times more in the US than in other developed countries.
“We’re no longer paying 10 times more than another country,” he said.
The policy plan, dubbed “most favored nation”, would force pharmaceutical companies to match the lowest global prices, in effect ending what Trump describes as systematic overcharging.
