An executive order issued today seeks to reduce pharmaceutical prices for Americans, who pay exorbitant amounts for pharmaceuticals due to our healthcare industry filled with middle-men and piecemeal negotiations on drug prices.
The order begins, "The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and yet funds around three quarters of global pharmaceutical profits."
The order goes on to state that other nations are freeloading on the United States because they negotiate better drug prices than United States pharmacies. Trump clearly doesn't understand the power of collective bargaining by more developed nations who offer single payer healthcare systems. The order seeks for "most-favored-nation" prices for drugs, which means prices in the United States will be capped at the lowest price paid by other developed nations.
The order requires the Secretary of Commers and US Trade Representative to review all deals made between pharaceutical companies and nations of the world to discover whether other countries are engaged in unfair practices with regard to drugs. It also requires the Secretary of Health and Human services to facilitate the consumer purchase of drugs directly from manufacturers.
Further, and perhaps more telling, the order threatens pharmaceutical companies that if they do not reduce prices, the Trump administration will force them to reduce prices. Full pressure will be applied by the Department of Justice to achieve these ends.
I am completely in favor of reducing the prices of drugs, but like many aspects of Trumpism, I disagree on tactic and strategy. We need a single payer system so we can fight pharmaceutical companies in negotiations, and cut out middle men. Further, these companies lobby our elected representatives to the tune of a quarter billion dollars every year, and therefore have the legislature in their pockets. That must end.
Trumpism is many things, but it's also stupid. If there is a smart way to do something, and a stupid way, Trump chooses the stupid way.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-put-american-patients-first-by-lowering-drug-prices-and-stopping-foreign-free-riding-on-american-pharmaceutical-innovation/
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/trump-executive-order-prescription-drugs-price-match-rcna206218
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_lobby
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