The President of the United States announced an executive order ensuring that medications must be sold at the same price at which they are imported
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President Donald Trump announced on Sunday his intention to sign an executive order to drastically reduce drug prices in the United States.
According to his statements on the social network Truth Social, Trump will implement a "Most Favored Nation" (MFN) policy that would make the United States pay for drugs the same price that the country acquiring them at the lowest cost in the world pays.
Trump promises immediate price reductions between 30% and 80%, which caused a drop in the shares of major American and foreign pharmaceutical companies.
This proposal is not new. During his first administration, Trump attempted to apply a similar policy in 2020. The plan established that Medicare, the federal health program for those over 65 years old, would pay for certain drugs administered in doctors' offices the lowest price among a group of economically comparable countries.
Trump había intentado establecer un programa similar con Medicare en su primer mandato
A savings of around 86 billion dollars over seven years was projected. However, the rule was blocked by federal courts that pointed out that the regulatory process had not been properly followed, and it was later withdrawn by the Biden administration in 2021.
Trump rightly argues that his new executive order will correct a historical injustice: that the United States, despite being the largest pharmaceutical market in the world, pays much higher prices than other countries for the same drugs, even manufactured in the same laboratories.
He argues that Americans have been the "fools" financing drug development for the rest of the world. In his message, he also noted that, although prices may drop in the United States, they could rise in other countries to level the conditions, which according to him would represent "justice for America".
El plan de Trump con respecto a Medicare, fue retirado por el demócrata Biden
The pharmaceutical sector has shown some opposition. Stephen Ubl, CEO of the industry group PhRMA, called the "foreign prices first" policy a threat to investment in innovation in the United States and warned that it could worsen access to drugs for patients, rather than improve it.
The industry argues that high prices in the United States fund the research and development of new treatments, and that reducing those revenues could slow innovation and increase dependence on countries like China.
Some investors also expressed concern, particularly about the impact this policy would have on high-cost drugs covered by Medicare Part B and on drugs aimed at large populations within the Medicaid program.
Since these two programs represent approximately 40% of drug spending in the United States, a policy that significantly alters their payment structures could greatly affect the revenues of pharmaceutical companies.
Algunos actores del sector farmacéutico se han mostrado escépticos frente al inminente decreto de Trump
It is worth noting that, since the approval of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 under the Biden administration, Medicare already has the authority to negotiate the price of certain drugs.
However, so far these negotiations have not included drugs administered by doctors (Part B), although they could in the future. Trump seeks to expand that capacity through this new executive order, although without details yet on its practical implementation.
Additionally, the executive order would include other measures such as standardizing Medicare payments for certain drugs regardless of the place of treatment and drastically reducing the prices of insulin and epinephrine for low-income or uninsured individuals.
It also contemplates initiatives to facilitate the importation of cheaper drugs from abroad, a practice that has been long debated and resisted by the industry.
La orden del presidente Trump incluiría estandarizar pagos de Medicare para ciertos medicamentos
