Big Pharma Down - Another Huge Accomplishment for the President That Will Go Unreported

 by

       George Sontag

      Big Pharma has long had a stranglehold on Americans. Politicians are given huge amounts of campaign money to vote to keep prices for prescription drugs at five, ten times, and sometimes more, than the rest of the world pays. They have used the “lie” that drugs from overseas cannot be trusted to be pure and safe while the drugs for say Europe, Asia, and the United States were made at the same facility.

• “When you think that our nation, for the exact same pill out of the exact same box, often made in the exact same factory, same company — and you take a look at the — the cost was so much more.” - Donald Trump

      President Trump, in keeping with another campaign promise

and before the next administration interferes, signed an executive order to bring down prices in the U.S. to that of the rest of the world. Here are some of his remarks:

      “Today, I have to tell you it’s a great honor for me to announce that my administration is issuing two groundbreaking rules to very dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs for the American people, especially for our cherished seniors.”

      “The unprecedented reforms we’re completing today are the direct result of the historic drug pricing executive orders I signed in July. Statutorily, we had to go through a very long process, and we got it done. I was very proud to have gotten this done. We were pushing it very hard, as we did with the vaccines and other things."

      “The first action will save American seniors billions of dollars by preventing middlemen — the famous middlemen, they call them — from ripping off Medicare patients with high prescription prices.”

      “Currently, drug companies provide large discounts on the price of prescription medicines, including nearly $40 billion in rebates to Medicare Part D plans last year alone. Yet often, middlemen stop those discounts from going to the patients — which is what we’re interested in; not the middlemen — who need it the most. So the patients are going to be now getting the benefit, instead of these very wealthy individuals.”

      “Patients pay very high prices, and they have for many years — although we brought it down; first time in 51 years — with the costs adding up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year, per patient.”

      “Today’s action ends this injustice and requires that these discounts go directly to the people. These are the people that need it. This will save patients up to 30 percent. It could be 40 percent, could be 50 percent, could be much higher than that. These are numbers that nobody has ever even contemplated, and that doesn’t include lifesaving drugs like insulin, which will be even higher. Insulin was destroying lives and destroying families because the cost was so high, and now it’s at a level that nobody can even believe.”

      “The second rule we are finalizing today will transform the way the U.S. government pays for drugs to end global freeloading on the backs of American citizens and American patients. Until now, Americans have often been charged more than twice as much for the exact same drug as other medically advanced countries. We would be having a drug — identical drug, same company — and we’d pay many times the price of what that drug would sell for in certain countries.”

      “In case after case, our citizens pay massively higher prices than other nations pay for the same exact pill, from the same factory, effectively subsidizing socialism abroad with skyrocketing prices at home. So we would spend tremendous amounts of money in order to provide inexpensive drugs to another country. And when I say the price is different, you can see some examples where the price is beyond anything — four times, five times different.”

      “To address this unfairness and to lower prices for Americans, we’re finalizing the Most Favored Nation rule. Remember that name. Most Favored Nation rule. Nobody has ever done this. The drug companies don’t like me too much, but we had to do it. It took a long time before we were able to do this because, statutorily, we had to go through a process. But they’ll — there’ll never be anything like this. I just hope they keep it. I hope they have the courage to keep it, because the powerful drug lobby — Big Pharma — is putting pressure on people like you wouldn’t believe.”

      “ Medicare will now look at the price that other developed nations pay for their drugs. And instead of paying the highest price on that list — and we are substantially higher than any other country in the world — we will pay the lowest price. In other words, we take the lowest price, and we match whatever the lowest price is, leading to colossal savings for all Americans. And we’re talking about savings of 50, 60, 70 percent, 80 percent — different drugs, different prices.”

      “Together, these reforms will save American patients many, many billions of dollars every single year. For generations, the American people have been abused by big pharma and their army of lawyers, lobbyists, and bought-and-paid-for politicians. But I’ve [never] been loyal to the special interests; I have been loyal to our patients and our people that need drugs — prescription drugs — and devoted myself completely to fighting for the American people. You see that. This is not an easy thing to do. Big Pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign.”

      “In a few weeks, my administration will also finalize rules requiring federally funded health centers to pass drug company discounts on insulin and EpiPens directly to patients. We capped insulin costs for many seniors at just $35 a month, as I said, saving them an average of nearly $500 to $1,000 a year just on insulin.”

      “We ended the gag clauses that prevented pharmacists from telling patients how to buy less expensive drugs. As you know, pharmacists could not talk to patients about how to buy drugs. We approved a record number of affordable generic drugs for three years in a row. And we put a very heavy emphasis on generic drugs. And the pricing there has become very good, but that pricing will also go down very substantially.”

      “In four short years, we’ve instituted the most dramatic series of drug pricing reforms in decades, and you’ll see that. It all comes to fruition right now, starting on January 1st. And the American people will benefit from our actions for many, many decades.”

      All Americans must be grateful for these actions. It was long, long overdue. Let us now hope that the Socialist elite, who won the election, don't fall back into the pockets of Big Pharma and reverse these historical price cuts. This was the right thing to do. It should have been done long ago.