WASHINGTON, DC – Today marks President Trump’s self-imposed deadline to advance an executive order for a most-favored nation approach to lower prescription drug prices. The president gave the pharmaceutical industry one month to propose a solution to meaningfully lower the list prices of drugs. Instead, drug corporations continued to raise prices and patients continued to struggle. It’s time for change.
“Abandoning the most-favored nation proposal at the 11th hour would be a capitulation to drug corporations,” said Ben Wakana, the executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “If President Trump does not implement a proposal to lower the list prices of prescription drugs, he will leave Americans continuing to pay the highest prices in the world.”
Drug prices are not going down by “50%, 60%, maybe 70%” as the president has claimed. Instead, prescription drug prices continue to go up, even during a global pandemic. Pharma has had decades to propose its own solutions to lower drug prices, but with continued price hikes, the drug industry has proven it is unwilling to do so.
Americans overwhelmingly support proposals to lower drug prices by tying them to prices paid in other countries. By a 71-point margin, voters supported the Department of Health and Human Services’ ANPRM to lower drug prices in Medicare Part B by implementing an International Pricing Index. The most-favored nation approach is considered an outgrowth of that idea.
Comprehensive reform to lower the list price of prescription drugs for all Americans requires Congress and the president to come together to enact meaningful and sustainable policy change.
Nearly nine in 10 voters believe it is very important for Congress to lower drug prices, and almost one-third of U.S. adults consider a candidate’s position on lowering drug prices to be “the single most important issue” or “among the most important issues” that will influence their vote in 2020.
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