When I actually read the Executive Order, a lot of it talks about asking drug companies to raise the drug prices in other countries. The sentiment of the Executive Order is not “I must win” as much as “everyone else must lose”. The presented premise of the Executive Order is that the US should pay the lowest drug prices in the world and part of that premise is asking drugs companies to raise prices in other countries. The Executive Order creates a false notion that drug companies need to have a minimum profit and that by increasing prices in other countries, then US drug prices will have to fall. Of course this is not how profits have ever worked. Companies have never said “we’re making too much profits, let’s lower our prices.” It’s all laissez-faire nonsense.
At the White House meeting Trump threaten to put tariffs on drug companies which offer lower drug prices to other countries. I’m not even sure how this could work because many drug patents are owned by different companies in other countries.
I made prescription drugs affordable
No, you didn’t Well, not me personally. But I made it so drug companies will bring their prices down. WHOO-EE!! No. No, you didn’t
No. No I didn’t…
But you can imagine what it’d be like if I did, eh? EH?Looking forward to MAGA heads constantly referring to this “War on Drug Prices” in the same way Blue MAGA constantly refers to Biden’s student debt relief as if he didn’t fold at the first sign of resistance.
Also the title of The Lever article is confusing. It makes it seem like Trump reduced drug prices, but what it actually means is that Trump has created a new roadblock which prevents lowering drug prices. The title is meant to say “Trump has already disarmed efforts at lowering drug prices”.
“executive order on drug costs is missing a key price-lowering mechanism”
“Big Pharma and its investors seem unconcerned, likely because RFK Jr. has already flip-flopped and declared he won’t use a far more powerful price-reducing tool”
https://archive.is/EsQm2 paywall bypass
I think it’s confusing because we know the war on drugs created more drugs, so you expect the war on drug prices to create more drug prices
Relevant article text:
💊 Trump already disarmed the war on drug prices. This morning the president signed a new executive order instructing Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. to use Medicare to buy drugs at the lowest world-market prices. Big Pharma and its investors seem unconcerned, likely because RFK Jr. has already flip-flopped and declared he won’t use a far more powerful price-reducing tool: a law that says regulators can “march in” and license lower-priced versions of government-developed medicines that Big Pharma does not make “available to the public on reasonable terms.” In his first term, Trump tried to permanently block the government from ever using that law.
Under pressure from Democrats, the Biden administration explored using march-in rights, but (like Obama’s administration) backed off amid Big Pharma’s flood of lobbying and campaign cash. A 2018 study found that U.S. government funding contributed to the development of nearly all FDA-approved medicines, and yet Americans are charged the world’s highest prices for those drugs (including GLP-1 weight loss medicines).
I wanted more, so I went to the BBC article which among other things, had this to say:
Stephen J Ubl, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement that “importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal” for American patients.
100% chance a smoky backroom was involved, possibly involving JFK footage to “remind” Trump who he really represents.
