President Trump, drug price initiatives

Some twenty years ago I was watching television, a woman with HHS was discussing the cost of pharmaceuticals with a panel of medical professionals. She explained that for moral reasons very poor countries cannot be expected to pay the cost of expensive American medicines. The biggest issue at the time was AIDS. The medicine for AIDS that cost American patients thousands of dollars at the time was sold to certain African countries for under one dollar.

I could be wrong, but that's how I recall what I heard. Not all, but most of the new pharmaceuticals are products of American research by American companies with American government funding. But Americans do not have any advantage in pricing. The industry devised a payment system based on calculations of individual country's citizens to pay. Americans are deemed most able to pay so we're charged the most. Canada and Europeans slightly less able to pay so they're charged slightly less, and so on down to the poorest countries. That's why people were traveling to Canada and Mexico to buy their medicines. It stuck me as simply the most communist scheme that the United States does. The presenters were rock solid defending the morality of their pricing decisions. They had no intention of changing no matter what national crisis was happening. Millions upon millions of lives are affected. Thousands of Americans died for their inability to afford medication.

I was hoping intensely that Trump would address this. And he does.

We’re taking aim at the global freeloading that forces American consumers to subsidize lower prices in foreign countries through higher prices in our country.  And I’ve seen it for years, and I never understood.  Same company, same box, same pill, made in the exact same location.  And you’ll go to some countries, and it would be 20 percent the cost of what we pay, and in some cases much less than that. 

And I’d say, “Why is this?”  I never knew that I would be able to stand here before you and have a chance to fix it.  And that’s what we’re doing.  We’re fixing it.  That’s called “real-life experience,” I guess. 

For decades, other countries have rigged the system so that American patients are charged much more — and in some cases much, much more — for the exact same drug.  In other words, Americans pay more so that other countries can pay less.  Very simple.  That’s exactly what it is.  It’s wrong.  It’s unfair.  It’s not surprising.  I’ve seen trade deals where it’s far more costly to us than even this.  And we’re changing them also. 

Foreign countries even threaten to disrespect our patents if they are not given cheaper prices on drugs.  So they’re not going to even look at the patents.  They’ve been very, very disrespectful, previously, to our country and to all of the things that we stand for.  And especially, they would disrespect patents when it came to American-made drugs. 

The American middle class is effectively funding virtually all drug research and development for the entire planet.  So we are paying for it.  We are subsidizing it.  Everybody else is benefitting.  And they are paying nothing toward research and development. 

The world reaps the benefits of American genius and innovation, while American citizens — and especially our great seniors, who are hit the hardest — pick up the tab.  But no longer. 

Trump continues with important several examples, none of them having to do with AIDS. When he talks about the medication for bone disease he conflates billions and millions. It's easy to do when the amounts are so huge that money becomes so unreal that it's just a concept of zeros.

Finally, a United States president who discusses millions and billions in terms of money saved the American people, by his priorities and his actions, and not in terms of resentful millionairesnbillionaires™to which we had become accustomed.

God bless you, President Trump. This really is an important day. I believe this is right up there with your most profoundly significant achievements to date.