President Trump is aiming to lower drug prices with an executive order he signed Tuesday.
Mr. Trump directed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to take steps to reduce prices, potentially save millions of dollars for Americans, and expand a program to help patients get deals on sickle-cell medication.
The order will lower drug prices for Medicare by improving the Medicare Drug Pricing Negotiation Program, matching drug prices to what hospitals pay for them, which the White House says is 35% lower than what the government currently pays.
The order also calls for standardizing Medicare payments for prescriptions.
“President Trump is dedicated to creating a transparent, competitive, and fair prescription drug market for American consumers,” the White House said in a fact sheet outlining the plan.
The price for insulin for low-income patients will be lowered to as low as $0.03 plus a small fee. Epinephrine for low-income and uninsured patients will be as low as $15, plus a small fee.
The government will also increase the availability of generic medications and biosimilars over the more expensive name brands.
What’s more, the government will try to cut out the middleman of drugs and make prices more transparent.
“By addressing the influence of middlemen and promoting open competition, President Trump’s actions aim to create a fairer prescription drug market that lowers costs and ensures accountability across the health care system,” the White House said.
Mr. Trump took steps in his first term to tackle expensive drugs, including urging the Food and Drug Administration to speed up generic drugs and import lower-cost drugs. He also pushed for more price transparency and government-mandated discounts for patients.
In February, he signed another executive order to promote healthcare transparency for patients.
Mr. Trump recently said tariffs on pharmaceuticals are coming, but has not said specifically how much they would be or when they would be implemented.
“Yeah, we’re going to be doing that, that’s going to be like we have on cars,” Mr. Trump said Monday, seated next to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office. “We, as you know, have a 25% tariff on cars, we have a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, and that’s what that category fits right now.”
He said the tariffs would be placed “in the not-too-distant future.”
“We’re doing it because we want to make our own drugs. We’re doing it because we want to make our own steel and aluminum, lumber, other things and they’re all coming in,” he said.
