EDITORIAL: Trump’s bitter pill: His prescription drug plan is weak in one of the most important areas
Here was the man who promised to un-rig the economy demonstrating how the art of the deal could help ordinary Americans, and, bonus, flying in the face of overly rigid conservative Republican free-market orthodoxy.
The
File this one with the border wall
With fanfare in the
The concept for prescription-drug savings Trump once promised as America's rescue from queasily high pharmaceutical prices he now condemns as "global freeloading": "It's unfair, it's ridiculous, and it's not going to happen any longer."
And, promising on a drug reaction that economists think is highly unlikely to materialize, the President swears that pushing other nations to lift their price caps will someday, somehow, spur drugmakers to lower exorbitant prices in the
If you felt a rumble Friday, it was the laughter of Big Pharma raking in big gains on
Trump also targets middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, who negotiate lower drug prices for insurers and keep a cut for themselves, and related rebates that may have the unintended effect of raising list prices on drugs.
Since those are already savings schemes, it's hard to see how altering them will wring massive new savings.
So how about those savings for seniors? Vague proposals to make it easier for private health insurers who work with Medicare to more easily bargain with drug-makers could bear fruit, but nothing like the bounty of savings Trump promised from the stump.
Did we mention that drug maker Novartis paid Trump's personal lawyer,
Thursday, CEO
After Trump's announcement Friday, he might want to rethink that assessment.
___
(c)2018 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Fung campaign lashes out at Raimondo over UHIP problems
Democratic Governors Association Issues Statement on Children’s Health Insurance Program
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News