Trump says he's taking 'revolutionary' action to lower drug prices
Source: The Washington Post
By Paige Winfield Cunningham and Felicia Sonmez October 25 at 4:30 PM
President Trump has introduced his boldest action yet on high drug prices, saying his administration is moving to stop the “global freeloading” by foreign nations when it comes to the price that American patients are paying for prescription drugs.
In a speech Thursday afternoon at the Department of Health and Human Services, Trump said his administration would be taking the “revolutionary” step of allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prices with drug companies who he says have “rigged” the system, causing U.S. patients to pay more for their medicines.
“Americans pay more so other countries can pay less. It’s wrong. It’s unfair,” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks were the first as president at HHS and come at a time when health care is playing a defining role in the midterm campaign. He argued other countries were being “very disrespectful” by selling their prescription drugs to Americans for higher prices than their own citizens are paying for them.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-address-drug-prices-in-speech-shifting-focus-to-health-care-before-midterm-elections/2018/10/25/88e16e0a-d84b-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html
Trump Proposes to Lower Drug Prices by Basing Them on Other Countries’ Costs
By Robert Pear
Oct. 25, 2018
28
WASHINGTON — President Trump proposed on Thursday that Medicare pay for certain prescription drugs based on the prices paid in other advanced industrial countries — a huge change that would save money for the government and for millions of Medicare beneficiaries.
As part of a demonstration project covering half the country, Medicare would establish an “international pricing index” and use it as a benchmark in deciding how much to pay for drugs covered by Part B of Medicare.
“This is a revolutionary change,” Mr. Trump said in a speech on Thursday at the Department of Health and Human Services. “Nobody’s had the courage to do it, or they just didn’t want to do it.”
Mr. Trump said his plan took aim at “global free riding” that forces Americans to subsidize lower drug prices in other countries.
“Americans pay more so that other countries pay less,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump’s announced was part of a flurry of initiatives emerging from the White House ahead of next month’s midterm elections when Democrats are threatening to take control of the House — and possibly the Senate. Democrats have focused their campaigns on health care, hammering Republicans on the high cost of prescription drugs and asserting that Republicans would undo protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions — one of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
On Thursday, the Trump administration offered an answer — but the drug proposal would go into effect in late 2019 or early 2020 at the earliest.
Mr. Trump has the authority to use the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation created by the Affordable Care Act to implement the proposal. That agency has wide discretion to conduct demonstration projects. The Trump administration will accept public comments before starting the project. But the proposal is likely to face fierce political resistance from drug makers, some health care providers and some Republicans in Congress, and it could also be subject to legal challenges.
Mr. Trump’s announcement came after his administration released a government study that found that Medicare was paying 80 percent more than other advanced industrial countries for some of the most costly physician-administered medicines.
“The current international drug pricing system has put America in last place,” Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said in unveiling the report on Thursday.
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/us/politics/medicare-prescription-drug-costs-trump.html
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time we'll hear anything about this subject. It's more Gee Oh Pee lying before the mid-term elections. They're promising everyone exactly what a Democratic majority in both houses of congress and a Democratic President would enact, but only as a ruse to convince low-information independents to vote for them. Lying, cheating, criminal scumbags, every damned one of them! 
Who's rushing out to pay these prices exactly? 
