It certainly does appear that prescription drugs have become increasingly expensive.
And one of President Trump’s core campaign promises was to lower the cost of these drugs.
Something the Democrats promised and failed to do with Obamacare.
Consider President Trump’s promise kept, as he recently signed four executive orders to lower the cost of prescription drugs!
Here’s the report from Reuters on Trump’s orders:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed four executive orders aimed at lowering the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs, as he faces an uphill re-election battle and criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump has previously proposed most of the changes made by the executive orders he signed on Friday, but this is the first time they have made it into signed executive orders.
One order would allow for the legal importation of cheaper prescription drugs from countries like Canada, while another would require discounts from drug companies now captured by middlemen to be passed on to patients, Trump said.
Another measure seeks to lower insulin costs while a fourth, which may not be implemented if talks with drug companies are successful, would require Medicare to purchase drugs at the same price that other countries pay, Trump said.
Executives of top drug companies have requested a meeting to discuss how they can lower drug prices, the president said.
“We will see what those discussions indicate but the agency is prepared to move forward,” said Medicare chief Seema Verma.
The orders received swift pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. The move was “a reckless distraction that impedes our ability to respond to the current pandemic – and those we could face in the future,” Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said in a statement.
The President announced his move via Facebook in the following post:
Watch Trump also announce his new orders on the news:
Remember that the Democrats promised Obamacare would revolutionize healthcare and significantly bring costs down.
Instead, all we've gotten is higher premiums and higher drug costs!
Voters should keep in mind which party really cares about providing good healthcare at a reasonable cost when November rolls around.
Check out some of the tweets in response to Trump's orders:
Forbes further reports on how the new orders will lower the cost of prescription drugs:
Americans have long complained about the fact that drug companies overcharge U.S. patients for medicines that cost much less elsewhere. A quartet of executive orders from President Trump, issued today, will change that.
“We are putting patients over lobbyists, senior citizens before special interests, and we’re putting America first,” said Trump.
The most important of the orders concerns what Medicare pays drug companies for drugs administered in physician offices, like those requiring an intravenous infusion.
First, some background. Today, Medicare Part B—our single-payer program for seniors’ visits to doctors’ offices—has a crazy way for paying for such drugs, called “ASP plus 6,” which stands for “average selling price plus 6 percent.” Doctors get a 6 percent commission—technically, now a 4.3 percent commission—on any drug they administer to a patient in their offices.
When Congress designed this provision of the Medicare program, it effectively turned doctors into glorified real estate brokers. Just as a real estate broker is incentivized to sell you a bigger house, so he can get a bigger commission, doctors are now incentivized to prescribe you the costliest medication, even if a more effective, lower-cost option is available.
The existence of this perverse incentive is an open secret in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Manufacturers know that if they develop a drug that needs to be infused intravenously, and is primarily used by Medicare patients, they can generally charge whatever they want, and force taxpayers and seniors to pay the bill.
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