Government price controls seem so far out of the picture in the US. If even price negotiations are a no no for the US, this is jus like talk to make him seem "for the people" as an excuse to back up tariffs, it feels to me.

Medicare for All He is so close…

Big Pharma is insulated from Trump gutting fed $$ in science in the short-term. Long-term they’ll take a hit b/c they won’t be able to buy promising molecules from researchers discovered using fed grants. This EO will result in pharma scrapping unprofitable treatments now, accelerating the problem.

I don’t understand what exactly this means. The trend is, we’ll reverse course tomorrow.

The "Thank you for your attention to this matter" at the end is so random

There's absolutely nothing like this that he can do that isn't going to be enjoined immediately, an absolute catastrophe for the market, or both.

Did he forget which party he’s in?

I really can’t wait for the details on this. I feel like this is going to cause absolute chaos for the pharma industry and drug prices in the US. But if it does result in higher prices in other countries anti-Americanism is going to skyrocket and make life for the US worse in the short and long run

It's unlikely to raise prices significantly in places that have some form of collectivized health care, the bargaining position is still "we pay x amount for this drug, take it or miss out on billions" for most commodity-drugs, and short term won't affect anything since those contracts run for years

that's a lovely royal proclamation.

So is this the signal to pharmaceutical companies to toss a few billion his way and he will reverse course on this? Or maybe another jet or two will work.

It's impossible to say what policy is actually being proposed here but the part about the prices rising in the rest of the world makes me think he might actually be talking about tariffs again.

🎯 That is EXACTLY what he's proposing. Tariffs on drugs that, again, the consumers will pay, will not be able to afford, and die.

That part jumped out at me too. It’s not enough to make drugs cheaper. He’s got to raise prices elsewhere. Something is just so wrong with his brain that cheaper wegovy isn’t a win. You have to know some sick kid in Uganda won’t be able to afford penicillin to really enjoy it.

Well, he's a monster, but if he lowers the cost of my meds I'll only pee on his grave a couple of times.

Of course, it's also promising an end result that I might like, but via means that will only cause more chaos, because we can't ever expect anyone in the Trump admin to actually think things through or have a coherent plan to solve a problem.

He’s right: Trump has moved way past “campaign donations”.

I'm already going to have to make a trip to Canada for a COVID booster, and maybe a seasonal flu shot, so why not prescription drugs too? 👀

"something that the Democrats have fought for many years"

But do you think big pharma will let that happen...he's just encouraging big pharma to reach out and bribe him...then betcha no more said on lowering drug costs

If it 1) were legal and 2) only applied to rich countries it would be fine, good even. But as is, it would make it effectively impossible to provide cheap HIV drugs (and many others) to developing countries. If it could get through the courts, which it can’t.

I think the Biden administration medicare price cuts go into effect within the next year so...

Even if it’s real it comes with the very high cost of having dissidents and legal residents disappeared by masked militia. Too fucking expensive.

it's not going to work but you can see how his brain works

It’s almost good (but I still don’t trust Trump to do anything right). I kind of agree that other countries could probably pay more of “their share”, but it shouldn’t be based on the lowest price of ANY country, but of other more developed/wealthy countries.

Given the amount of decline that Trump intends and is implementing (he’s shooting for 1890s prosperity, so a median income roughly 3/4 of the poverty line) we’ll be among the semi-developed by the time prices change

“Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

yep:

For certain definitions of "brain" and "work."

bsky.app/profile/glen...

Instead of broad gov support for the industry to bring costs down and advance research he thinks he can make China or whoever pay for it directly

i mean it is very bad if it causes pharma companies to raise prices in poor countries so that they can charge more here.

So first of all, fuck Sam Hammond again. His whole rationale for supporting Trump completely failed here. Second of all, this is about as bad as it can get I think. Requiring the US to have the lowest prices would destroy the current tiered pricing system, simultaneously crushing drug development

and potentially killing more people in the developing world than the illegal closure of USAID as pharma companies will be more likely to raise prices there than lower them here.

Obviously big Pharma hasn't contributed enough $$$ to POTUS (yet.)

If it works, it is bad. Countries with a centralized health insurance allow companies to charge enough to make the pharmaceuticals that do work profitable to make and sell, but not nearly enough to pay for R&D for everything that doesn't pan out.

Those R&D costs DO get passed on the US customers because of our private healthcare system allows companies to. This is a large part of why healthcare is so much more expensive in the US and it is certainly not fair.

The problem is if the US just joins the rest of the world in mandating bare profitability, R&D disappears. No new medicine. This is doubly true since the NIH is being gutted. This is a death sentence for medical research.

Not sure that putting tariffs on everything you need to make pharmaceuticals and biologics while also implementing price controls on the end product is a winning policy combo, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

based tbh

I know, no one seems to care about the law anymore, but - is this for Medicare/Mwdicaid, or for everyone? Because if it’s the second, did I miss where the president could implement price controls in an industry?

I uhhhh hate saying it but this won't work

He's lying, what the hell are you even saying here?

you can't use executive orders to do this...

i mean it won't happen as stated but as stated it's pretty bad, matching prices with the poorest countries on Earth just means nobody in Africa gets medicine and R&D more or less ceases to exist

huge gulf between "the government should negotiate prices down for American consumers" and "we are going to match prices with Sudan"

yeah there's a real merit here (pharmaceuticals tend to be overpriced, esp in the US) but knowing Trump the rationale isn't the simple, intuitive one

This also isnt just going to work like he thinks it is because other countries have legal controls on pharma prices. The pharma companies are going to do, this will get enjoined and prices around the world aren't going to magically rise.

The big problem here is that unlike the expected path (the President convinces Congress that this is an important issue, Congress drafts a law, the President signs it) it's another example of Trump attempting to rule by decree through EOs, and it's clear they're nowhere binding as laws.

Yes, and he doesn't actually have the power to dictate retail prices for things. He tried something similar his first term and the courts shot it down.