President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that affects drug prices through the Medicare drug price negotiation programme and relieves the almost 69 million people who rely on the national programme, especially senior citizens.
Trump’s actions directed the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led Department of Health and Human Services to collaborate with Congress on legislation that had low drug prices.
White House officials told reporters during a Tuesday presentation before Trump signed the order that” Detail will have to wait for this approach to play out, but we are assured we will moon the benefits the Biden administration achieved in the first year.
The order revives a second initiative under the Trump presidency that provides insulin to low-income people, including the uninsured. According to a White House fact sheet, it also aims to improve the Medicare Drug Pricing Negotiation Program by surpassing the 22 % in saving made in the agency’s first time.
According to White House officials, the executive order also establishes steps to align the cost of Medicare with the cost of hospitals to purchase drugs, which can be 35 % less than what the government currently pays, according to White House officials.
Trump capped hormone prices for Medicare elderly at$ 35 during his first word through a volunteer system in 2020. However, former US President Joe Biden likewise received praise for enforcing the Inflation Reduction Act, which increased cover for Trump’s initiatives, to set the mandatory cap on hormone co-payments at$ 35.
According to officers,” We want to learn from the experiences of the Biden administration and believe that we can have some changes that that improve the program’s efficiency and also increase its accountability,” they said.
Trump states in the official language of the order that” While this program has the commendable goal of lowering the drug prices Medicare and its beneficiaries pay, its administratively complex and expensive regime has thus far produced much lower savings than projected.”
Through the executive order, the Food and Drug Administration is also directed to facilitate state importation programs and streamline approval for generic and biosimilar medications, which offer a competitive advantage to brand-name biologics.
The prices can drop as low as 80 % below the brand once there is strong generic competition, according to officials. ” And while we made a lot of progress in the last term by removing the generic backlog, biosimilar adoption has still been lagging.”
Trump has considered replacing the new executive order with tariffs on pharmaceuticals, which might raise drug prices.
