President Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at slashing prescription drug costs.
The Hill’s Alexandra O’Connell-Domenech writes:
“The U.S. has paid more than other similarly wealthy countries for prescription drugs for decades, with a 2024 study…finding that Americans in general pay 2.78 times more for prescription drugs than 33 other nations.”
The government plans to negotiate with drug companies and roll out a “favored nation” policy that would allow the U.S. to pay the same cost as “the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.”
At a press conference announcing the action, Trump said “we’ll no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma.”
The price caps have been a progressive wish-list item for years.
“I grew up in the Democratic Party and every major Democratic leader for 20 years has been making this promise to the American people,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the press conference. “This was the fulcrum of Bernie Sanders’s run for president…but none of them were doing it, it’s a promise politicians make to their constituents knowing they’ll never have to do it because Congress is controlled by the pharmaceutical lobby.”
Conservatives have long criticized price controls as a failed socialist experiment that will reduce research and development and lead to shortages.
“They’ve been justifying this crap for years saying it’s research and development,” Trump said. “Well other countries should pay research and development too, it’s for their development.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said they’d support a bill codifying the executive order into law.
“If Trump is serious about making real change rather than just issuing a press release, he will support legislation I will introduce to ensure we pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other major countries,” Sanders said. “If we come together, we can get it passed in a few weeks.”
“I support @realDonaldTrump effort to ensure Americans do not pay more for drugs than those in other countries,” Khanna posted on X. “But instead of an EO that will get challenged again by Big Pharma, why not work with @BernieSanders & me to make this law.”
