Posted on 07/05/2019 5:30:38 PM PDT by RightGeek
President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration intends to announce a plan to decrease prescription drug costs based on the lowest price other countries pay.
He called it a “favored-nations clause.”
“As you know, for years and years, other nations paid less for drugs than we do,” he told reporters gathered on the South Lawn of the White House. “We’re working on it right now, we’re working on a favored nations clause, where we pay whatever the lowest nation’s price is.”
Trump said he will sign an executive order to implement the plan.
“Why should other nations, like Canada, … pay much less than us?” he asked. “They’ve taken advantage of the system for a long time, pharma.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Price controls. How very free market
As I understand it, this is pricing for drugs that are purchased or reimbursed by the federal government. Rather than lower prices for all, such a policy may shrink the deep discounts that Canada and other countries are getting.
Good, I’m tired of paying $53 for an Albuterol inhaler a month...
I guess that we have been foolish. We Americans are picking up the tab while the Canadians get to brag about their wonderful health care system and cheap medicines. Doesn’t seem far. Yet again, Americans are screwed over by our supposedly friendly and loving allies. We are or were fools.
When you think about it, America could produce just about any drug it wanted in any quantity much, much, much cheaper than anyone else in the world.
So why is it so expensive?
Ever watch “The Nightly News” on NBC?
You will see from beginning to end an almost endless litany of “see your doctor is you have some weird itch” type commercials... every one of them designed to convice you you have a life threatening, civikization destroying disease.
They (the pharmaceautical industries) OWN the media, and they are not shy at all about it, not one bit.
I wonder if the Canadians have leverage because their insurance companies represent all Canadians.
I am curious to see what this will actually become.
One thing I do know is that there are many drugs which are simply not available in other countries’ nationalize healthcare systems.
I guess my point is, aside from the question of free market and price controls and whether an EO has the power to achieve this, how do you really judge a fair price if other markets simply won’t permit the drugs. I know that manufacturers in all industries offer different prices to foreign markets for various reasons - tariffs, shipping costs, competitive pressures, market share, seasonal promotions, production overruns etc. I think a blanket “most favored nations” pricing law will make a lot of waves. It will cause drug makers to pull drugs from other markets if they can’t raise the price.
Considering that we don’t allow Americans to import drugs at all on the retail level, it’s the least we can do.
Price controls? They just have to raise prices to other countries.
You make a valid point. I wonder how much they spend on advertising vs research and development?
I don’t think that the leverage has to do with the single payer system. The leverage they (and other countries) have is simply the approval or rejection of the drug. If the government deems the price too high (or, in the case of cancer drugs they deem the price too high for the life expectancy of the disease (cost/benefit, which is a shallow way of looking at it)) then they simply don’t let it in.
So the drug companies either give them the price, or stay out of the market.
The drug industry has undergone a radical change over the last 20 years. These days nearly all of the innovation on new drugs comes from independent companies/entities. They are funded by the private investors and/or wall street. Then, when they reach some milestone (e.g. get it out of the lab into human testing, or show safety and efficacy in Phase I or II or III clinical trials) they raise money. The further the drug gets through the hurdles the more they raise because the more likely it will get to market. But ultimately one of the big pharma companies simply buys the new company.
In short, the drug companies are generally spending less on R&D, and more on acquisitions after the success of the compound is shown to be more likely.
That’s leverage I guess. One of the best bargaining tools is to be willing to walk away.
Wishful thinking.
The formulas for all widely prescribed drugs are well known.
Other countries will just make their own drugs, or buy them from other pirate countries.
Legally, international law is trending toward the idea that all human beings should have affordable access to health changing drugs.
The obvious problem?
Private drug companies will no longer invest in R&D since their patents will be worthless.
Government will become the sole financial sponsor of medical and pharma R&D.
As long as there is no compromise on quality and medical research is not impeded.
The key phrase here is “based on the lowest price other countries pay”, which sounds good, but I don’t know. The government mandating prices has not worked out too well historically.
Just the vested interests - big pharma of course, big insurance, advocacy groups for seniors, children, the poor, etc., and foreign countries and their unique ways of doing business are mind boggling.
Then someone (a government agency probably) has to continually monitor the situation to make sure everyone is ‘playing by the rules’, and a place to go for complaints, grievances, and recompense.
And that’s just what’s off the top of my head.
And there are some cases where countries just threatened to void the patent and manufacture it themselves if the drug company didn’t sell it for the incremental manufacturing cost plus a small profit. Stick Uncle Sucker and our citizens with the full R&D price plus cost of the factory.
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