Trump offers 30 -day drug manufacturers Ultimatum: “Let’s pay what Europe pays”

PresidentDonald TrumpOn Monday, he signed an executive order that established a period of 30 days for drug manufacturers to reduce the cost of recipe medicines in the United States, or to face new limits on the way on which the Government will pay.

The order calls on the Department of Health, directed byRobert F. Kennedy Jr.To speed up new drug tags for the next month. If you do not reach offers, Kennedy will be commissioned to develop a new rule that links the price that the United States pays for medicines to reduce prices paid in other countries.

“Let’s equalize,” Trump said during a Monday morning press conference. “We will all pay the same. Let’s pay what Europe pays.”

It is unclear what is, if any, the executive order of the Republican President will have millions of Americans who have private health insurance. The federal government has more power to shape the price paid for drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump promised the new drug prices savings, a few hours after the house led by RepublicansTheir new plan to cut $ 880 million from Medicaid.

Taxpayers passHundreds of thousands of dollarsOn recipe medicines, injectables, transfusions and other medicines every year through Medicare, which covers about 70 million larger Americans. Medicaid, which provides almost free health care for almost 80 million poor and disabled in the United States as wellFor tens of billions of dollarsEvery year for drugs.

The main drug makers in the United States say that Trump’s order is bad for patients

The Nation’s pharmaceutical lobby, which represents the main drug makers in the United States, was immediately returned against Trump’s order, calling “miscarriage” for North -Americans. Drug manufacturers have long defended that any threat to their benefits could affect the research they do to develop new medicines.

“The import of foreign prices of socialist countries would be a poor condition for patients and North -American workers,” said Stephen J. UBL, President and CEO of PHRMA, in a statement. “It would mean less treatments and care and endanger the hundreds of billions that our member companies plan to invest in America.”

Trump’s “most favored nation” approach to Medicare’s medicine price fixation has been controversial since he sought to implement him during his first term. Signeda similar executive orderIn recent weeks of its presidency, which requested that the United States only pay a lower price than other countries pay for some medicines, such as injectables or cancer medicines, which are given through infusions, administered in a doctor’s office.

That close executive order faced obstacles, witha court orderThis blocked the rule of entering into force under the administration of President Joe Biden. The pharmaceutical industry argued that Trump 2020’s attempt would give foreign governments “superior hand” when deciding the value of medicines in the United States.

Trump says other countries are to blame

Trump repeatedly defended pharmaceutical companies, instead of blaming other countries of the high price that Americans pay drugs, during a wide speech at the White House on Monday. The president was flanked by Kennedy, the Medicare Centers and the Medicaid Services Administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Commissioner for Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary and the National Health Director, Jay Bhattacharya.

However, he threatened companies with federal research on their practices and opening the U.S. drug market to provide more imported drugs from other countries.

“Pharmaceutical companies get most of their benefits from America,” said Trump. “This is not good.”

Trump played the announcement over the weekend, boasting a post that his plan could save “trillions of dollars”.

But on Monday, the White House did not provide any information on the amount of money that the administration can save.

Health leaders’ leaders will meet with drug company executives for the next 30 days to offer new drug prices based on other countries, said Oz on Monday.

It is unlikely that North -Americans see immediate savings

It is unlikely that North -Americans see relief on increasing drug costs due to order, said Rachel Sachs, a health law expert at Washington University.

“It seems that the plan is to ask manufacturers to voluntarily lower their prices to some time, which is unknown,” Sachs said. “If they do not reduce prices to the desired point, HHS will do other shares with a very long timeline, some of which could, in the future, the lowest prices of medicines.”

The Ministry of Health has the highest authority to change the prices of medication covered by Medicare and Medicaid because it can establish regulations. However, the power of the agency to do it is limited. Congress has just approved by 2022A new lawThis allows Medicare to negotiate the price he pays for a good number of recipe drugs from 2026. Before the law, Medicare paid what he charged by pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies unsuccessfully succeeded in implementing the law.

The price that millions of Americans covered by private insurancePays for drugsIt is even more difficult for the agency to manipulate.

The U.S. routinely establishes other nations on drug prices, compared to other large and rich countries, a problem that has long been attracted to the wrath of two important political parties, but a lasting solution has never erased Congress.

Trump entered his first term by accusing pharmaceutical companies of “escaping from the murder” and complaining that other countries whose governments establish drug prices took advantage of the north -Americans.

Trump says he will “do the right”

In the face of the announcement, Trump returned his rhetoric to the industry on social media, writing that “pharmaceutical/pharmaceutical companies would say, for years, that these were research and development costs and that all these costs were, and would not be, for no reason, by the” suckers “of America, alone”.

In reference to the powerful pressure efforts of the pharmaceutical companies, he said that the contributions of the campaign “can make wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican party”.

“Let’s do the right thing,” he wrote.

Several pharmaceutical companies gained ground on the stock market on Monday morning. MercyA company that did $ 64.2 billion last year with the help of its Keytruda cancer treatment, increased by 3.9%. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizerwhich obtained income of $ 63.6 billion by 2024, increased by 2.5% while Gilead Sciences increased by 5.8%.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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