New MAHA Trump order slashes prescription drug prices

President Donald Trump announced a game-changing executive order on Monday that aims to slash prescription drug prices in the United States. 

Trump’s order directs the U.S. Trade Rep and Commerce Secretary to crack down on foreign countries pulling shady tricks to jack up our drug prices while keeping theirs dirt cheap. Under the order, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will establish a mechanism through which Americans can buy drugs directly from manufacturers.

The White House explained that drug prices in the United States are “more than three times the price other OECD nations pay, even after accounting for discounts manufacturers provide in the U.S.” Shockingly, while the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, it funds nearly 75% of global pharmaceutical profits, officials said. 

In order to provide discounts to foreign markets, drug manufacturers charge high prices in America, effectively forcing Americans to subsidize pharmaceutical profits and foreign health systems, even as those same companies benefit from “generous research subsidies and enormous healthcare spending by the U.S. Government.”

“This abuse of Americans’ generosity, who deserve low-cost pharmaceuticals on the same terms as other developed nations, must end. Americans will no longer be forced to pay almost three times more for the exact same medicines, often made in the exact same factories,” Trump said in his executive order. “As the largest purchaser of pharmaceuticals, Americans should get the best deal.”

During an appearance on FOX Business’ "Varney & Co,” Secretary Kennedy said it is unclear exactly when the drug prices will fall.

"There are a series of escalating steps that we will take if they don't cooperate," he said. "But we've been meeting with the pharmaceutical companies. They admit that this is something that should have ended a long time ago, and I think they're ready to figure out a way to get there, and they have advantages in this executive order because we got rid of the PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Managers). We got rid of the middlemen, and that's something that they've wanted themselves."