Cnn
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President Donald Trump sign A radical executive decree Monday morning, which promises to suppress “unreasonable and discriminatory practices” by foreign countries that make Americans pay much higher prices for prescription drugs, said a White House official.
The multifaceted directive, which will probably be challenged in court, aims for negotiations from other governments with pharmaceutical companies that considerably reduce the prices of numerous drugs in their country. While the American presidents and legislators have long described the practice, they have generally avoided taking wide measures in accordance with the philosophy of the American free market.
“From today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries, which we did,” Trump said at a press conference before signing the order.
While Medicare has won the historic power to negotiate prices for a small number of drugs per year, Trump’s executive order will apply to a multitude of drugs and at market prices, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. He replied that the directive was equivalent to “price checks” by telling journalists that the current system involves price checks because pharmaceutical companies set the price.
Phrma, a main commercial association of the industry, did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
If prices do not drop quickly, the administration will examine various political levers that can be used to force prices down, a White House official told journalists on Monday. The mandate also calls on the Ministry of Health and Social Services to negotiate lower prices in all markets. If no progress is made, the agency will implement a rule to impose the cost of the “most favored nation” for the drug, which would be the lowest price available among homologous countries.
The action, if it is implemented, goes far beyond the implementation of Trump to A policy of “the most favored nation” In his first mandate, which was quickly blocked by the federal courts for procedural reasons before being canceled by the president of the time, Joe Biden, in 2021. This rule would have imposed the lowest price paid by a country of peers on 50 medication medication part B which are administered in medical offices.
It is not known how much Americans will see lower prices and what authority the US government has to direct the prices of medicines in other countries.
In a social post of truth on Monday morning, Trump wrote“The prices of drugs will be reduced by 59%.”
He followed a post Sunday evening that promised, “the prices of prescription drugs and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced, almost immediately, from 30% to 80%. They will increase worldwide in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, will bring equity to America! I will institute the most favored price in the world. ”
Americans have long paid much higher prices for many drugs than patients from other countries, largely because other governments often determine the cost. The American prices of all drugs – both the brand name and the generics – were almost 2.78 times higher than those of the comparable countries in 2022, according to a HHS report Last year. For brand medicines, American prices were at least 3.22 times higher, even after adjustment for the estimated discounts.
This story has been updated with additional information