President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that he had reduced costs by up to 1,500%, only days after he sent letters telling major pharmaceutical companies to implement a most favored nation pricing scheme for prescription medications.
However, Trump’s lofty assertion is mathematically unfeasible.
With NBC 7, you can watch San Diego News for free, anywhere, at any time.
Let’s examine the facts in more detail.
TRUMP: “We have reduced the cost of medications by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, and 1,500 percent. I’m referring to 14 1,500%, not 50%.
With our News Headlines email, you can receive the best local San Diego stories every morning.
The facts show that this is untrue. Theoretically, if medicine prices were reduced by more than 100%, consumers would be compensated for using their prescription drugs. Although the Trump administration has taken action to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, analysts say there is no proof that prices have decreased this much.
Geoffrey Joyce, the director of health policy at the Schaeffer Center at the University of Southern California, described Trump’s allegation as complete nonsense. He concurred that instead of the other way around, it would be the pharmaceutical firms paying the consumers.
Mariana Socal, an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in the U.S. pharmaceutical market, stated, “I find it really difficult to translate those numbers into some actual estimates that patients would see at the pharmacy counter.” She also mentioned how difficult it is to understand Trump’s calculations.
Healthy Returns: AstraZeneca CEO proposes some U.S. drug price cuts amid Trump pressure
How will Trump’s E.U. tariffs affect drug prices?
“It’s an objective fact that Americans are paying exponentially more for the same exact drugs than people in other developed countries, and it’s an objective fact that no other Administration has done more to rectify this unfair burden for the American people,” White House spokesman Kush Desai responded when asked what evidence Trump was using to support his claim.
The White House could not provide any additional evidence, but it did release a chart showing the differences in medicine prices between the United States and similar nations. Trump also stated on Sunday that prescription price reductions are a future development rather than something that has already occurred.
Therefore, he stated, we would be lowering the cost of drugs. Over the course of the following two to three months, it will increase by 1,200, 1,300, and even 1,400%.
The majority of prescription medications, with the exception of unbranded generics, cost more in the United States than in other wealthy nations. The way that medicine costs are negotiated in the US is largely to blame for this.
The White House said last week that Trump just sent letters to 17 pharmaceutical companies urging them to take action. He requested that they match the lowest prescription medicine pricing in other similarly developed nations in order to cut expenditures in the United States. Since then, a few pharmaceutical companies have stated that they are willing to reduce expenses.
This action comes after Trump signed an executive order in May requiring pharmaceutical companies to electively reduce their costs in the United States within 30 days or risk future price caps on government reimbursement.
The largest influence over the cost of medications covered by Medicare and Medicaid rests with the federal government. What effect, if any, the Trump administration’s initiatives will have on the millions of Americans with private health insurance is unknown.
Socal said that given the criticism they have received over the years for their pricing policies, pharmaceutical companies would be shouting it from the rooftops if they had reduced costs to the degree Trump says.
According to her, I would anticipate that they would make public statements well in advance of the actual dates on which those price reductions would take effect.
Joyce concurred that there hasn’t been any sign of a significant cut.
He responded, “Not at all, not at all, none whatsoever.” Not to mention 1,500.
