Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris agree on a rare point of their otherwise bitter and divisive dispute: It is as much as the federal government to lower high drug prices within the United States.
Harris solid the deciding vote within the Senate in 2022 on a bill that will allow Medicare to barter drug prices for its greater than 60 million insured people. Previously, she was an aggressive regulator of the pharmaceutical industry as California's attorney general.
As president, Trump would likely proceed Medicare price negotiations unless the drug industry can put something more compelling on the table, people near him say. During his first term, he proposed several measures to scale back prescription costs but had limited success in implementing them.
However, the pharmaceutical industry may gain advantage if Trump continues to fail to push through such proposals.
“His efforts were largely fragmented and faced resistance from both industry and lawmakers,” said Sergio Jose Gutierrez, a political strategist who has worked primarily with Democrats within the U.S. “The lack of a coherent strategy and limited ability to implement meaningful change made his approach less effective compared to what a Harris-Waltz administration could offer.”
The industry is increasingly under attack from lawmakers of each parties over drug prices that almost all Americans consider unreasonableKFF polls suggest the election consequence could possibly be crucial to the fate of drug firms. Their predicament is a pointy turnaround from years past, when the businesses enjoyed a popularity for being virtually untouchable. For greater than a decade, the manufacturers successfully fended off proposals to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices before losing the battle two years ago.
The shift of their political standing is reflected in pharmaceutical firms' donations to candidates. An industry that gave three to 4 times as much to GOP candidates as to Democrats within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s is now playing it secure. So far within the 2024 election cycle, pharmaceutical firms have donated $4.89 million to Democrats and $4.35 million to Republicans. in line with OpenSecretsa non-partisan research group.
Harris received $518,571 from industry and Trump received $204,748.
At the Democratic convention in Chicago last week, Harris and her fellow Democrats touted their success in lowering drug prices. Harris' supporters point to her past and present.
During her tenure as Attorney General of the State of California, she was involved in cases that resulted in pharmaceutical firms being fined nearly $7.2 billion (about $22 per person within the United States).
Her vote to pass President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act not only paved the best way for Medicare price negotiations, but in addition for an annual cap on total drug spending by Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 and a cap on monthly insulin supplies at $35.
“In the United States of America, no retiree should have to choose between filling their prescription and paying their rent,” Harris said on August 15 of their first joint appearance with Biden since he dropped out of the presidential race.
She has promised that if elected president, she’s going to extend each the annual cap on drug spending and the cap on insulin prices to all insured Americans, not only those with Medicare.
Harris also supported a controversial policy In some cases, this may give the federal government the chance to create more competition available in the market by seizing patents on expensive drugs developed with federal funds.
Doug Hart, 77, of Tempe, Arizona, spent about $7,000 a yr on prescribed drugs. A drug he takes to stop blood clots is getting cheaper as a part of Medicare price negotiations. The retired union leader said the reduction shall be significant and is one reason he supports Harris.
“The Republicans all voted against the Medicare negotiations. Harris broke the tie in the Senate and allowed the negotiations to proceed,” said Hart, a board member of the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, which works to mobilize returning union members and activists on progressive issues.
During his term, he attempted to align drug prices under Medicare with lower international prices, a proposal that PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute It is estimated that this may cost five pharmaceutical firms as much as $500 million per yr. The so-called “most-favored nation” clause was blocked on account of legal objections and later repealed by the Biden administration.
Trump make a rule Creating a pathway to import drugs from Canada and other countries. Florida is the primary state this yr to receive federal approval to import some prescribed drugs from Canada. However, the state has been blocked by Resistance from Health Canadathe Canadian government ministry chargeable for national health policy.
And on his campaign website posted a video In it, he asked whether health problems in children were the results of “overprescription” of medication.
“Too often, our public health system is too close to the pharmaceutical industry – they make a lot of money, the pharmaceutical industry – big corporations and other special interests and is unwilling to ask the difficult questions about what is happening to the health of our children,” he said. “When the pharmaceutical industry defrauds American patients and taxpayers or puts profits before people, it must be investigated and held accountable.”
Trump has not spoken much about drug prices during his 2024 campaign, but allies and former advisers say he stays committed to lowering prescription drug prices if re-elected.
He would likely give attention to increasing competition in generics and biosimilars, allowing drugs made within the U.S. but sold abroad to be imported back into the U.S., and limiting out-of-pocket costs for insulin, former Trump administration officials say. Other goals could include lowering drug prices within the Medicare 340B program, which requires pharmaceutical firms to supply outpatient drugs at reduced prices to eligible health care organizations that serve low-income and uninsured patients.
“The most important issue that was on his mind during my time in the White House, and that I continue to hear him talk about, is lowering drug prices,” said Theo Merkel, a senior scholar on the conservative think tanks Paragon Health Institute and Manhattan Institute. Merkel also served as a special assistant within the White House under Trump. “I'm confident that will be at the top of the agenda,” he added.
Catherine Hill, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said the industry association looks forward to working with any future presidential administration.
She criticized the Biden administration's plan to barter Medicare prices and Trump's plan to bring U.S. prices in step with those abroad. This month, the administration announced latest, reduced prices for 10 medicines in this system following negotiations between the federal government and the drug manufacturers. The lower costs will come into effect in 2026.
“Previous price controls imposed by the Biden administration threaten to stifle this innovation,” Hill said. “Undermining intellectual property protections and adopting other countries' price controls will further undermine innovation and jeopardize patient access to medicines.”
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