Watchdog Slams President Trump for Drug Price Fixing Plan

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) called on President Trump to abandon his most-favored nation plan to impose price controls on life-saving medications. President Trump is signing an Executive Order on May 12 stipulating “the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.” This will result in artificially low prices that do not account for drugs’ manufacturing and distribution costs, hampering production and disrupting access for patients.

TPA President David Williams slammed the proposal:

“There is no better or faster way to flatline the healthcare system than price-fixing medications that millions of patients rely on. Tethering drug prices to prices in other countries will lead to dramatically less availability, lower quality drugs, and significantly worse health outcomes. Other countries have been down this road before. Government interference and manipulation of prices have reliably resulted in drug manufacturers shuttering production in these nations and setting up shop in more market-based countries such as the U.S. Even the former Biden administration admitted that ‘over half of new drugs are launched first in the U.S. before being launched in other countries’ with an average availability lag of a year. That would change on a dime if manufacturers suddenly were unable to recoup the $2 billion it takes to bring a drug to market in America.”

Williams continued: “Sadly, this is not a new idea. In October of 2018, the first Trump administration released a proposal for an International Price Index (IPI) that would tether Medicare-covered drugs to an average or ‘index’ of prices that other developed countries pay for their drugs. TPA and other watchdog groups fought tooth-and-nail against this harmful proposal, and President Trump wisely refrained from implementing an IPI. The terrible idea of price fixing refuses to die. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s drug ‘negotiation’ program allows Medicare to impose artificially low prices on drugs covered by Medicare Part B and Part D. University of Chicago scholars estimate that these Biden price controls will result in 135 fewer medications being brought to market through 2039. President Trump should end this failed Biden policy, not double-down on it by imposing even more price controls.”

Williams concluded: “President Trump has a laudable record bringing down drug prices, and he can continue that path through streamlining drug approval at the Food and Drug Administration. President Trump can also lower costs and increase drug availability by reducing burdensome manufacturing regulations and cutting research red tape. Price controls are not what the doctor ordered and are a recipe for disaster.”