#Trump unveils ‘revolutionary’ executive orders to cut drug prices

President Trump on Friday unveiled what he called four “sweeping” and “revolutionary” executive orders to dramatically lower prescription costs.

Trump said he was “unrigging the system that is many decades old” and that “some very rich people are not gonna like me very much today.”

The president’s orders seek to lower the cost of insulin and epipens, allow states and pharmacies to buy drugs overseas, slash pay to medical middlemen and make sure other countries don’t pay less for American drugs.

Trump said banning the government from paying more for drugs than other countries was “the granddaddy of them all,” but won’t take effect until Aug. 24. Pharmaceutical executives will visit the White House on Tuesday and Trump said they must agree to slash drug prices substantially or the order will take effect.

“We incredibly and foolishly bear the full cost of all research and development,” Trump said. “You think the world looks at us and says, ‘Where the hell did these people come from?’”

“We may not need to implement the fourth executive order, which is a very tough order for [pharmaceutical companies],” Trump said. “We’ll see what they have to say on Tuesday, maybe they have an idea that’s good but it’s got to be very substantial.”

Details will be pored over by health experts. Trump already has taken action as president to lower insulin prices to $35 a month for Medicare enrollees and to open the door to buying drugs from Canada. Trump said the new orders would reduce the cost of insulin to “pennies a month” and that importation will now be allowed from “Canada and other countries.”

Trump’s orders could buoy his reelection chances. Recent polls show senior citizens prefer Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

“The fourth order we’re going to hold that until August 24, hoping that the pharmaceutical companies will come up with something that will substantially reduce drug prices, and the clock starts right now,” Trump said.

Trump said that the pending order would use the immense buying power of the federal government to lower drug prices. He noted that Congress banned the federal government from negotiating drug prices, but did not say how the order would lawfully bypass the restriction.

Trump said of the hypothetical order: “Medicare will be required to purchase drugs at the same price as other countries pay. So we would pay four or five times more for a drug. We now pay if somebody else pays $1 and we pay $5, we’re paying $1. Now what’s going to happen is their number will go up, our number will come very substantially down, and we’ll all agree at two and a half or two.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar noted, “$30 billion a year of concealed kickbacks to middlemen are going to now flow to Medicare patients.”

“You have taken on the drug companies, you’re taking all the middlemen, you’re taking on the European socialists, all for the forgotten men and women of America who show up at a pharmacy counter,” said Azar, a former pharmaceutical executive.