WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Friday that all 50 states along with Puerto Rico and DC have opted into his “most favored nations’’ drug-price initiative to lower prescription costs for Medicaid recipients.
The president strong-armed 26 major pharmaceutical companies into enacting the special drug pricing for federal agencies to match the rates paid in eight other high-income nations, including Canada, Germany, Japan and the UK.
“They all succumbed to the dollar,” Trump said of the US states and others who have now joined what he called his “GENEROUS” initiative, passing along the cost saving to state-administered Medicaid programs covering roughly 70 million Americans.
“This will save states billions and billions of dollars per year on drugs and allow them to invest those savings in providing better healthcare and higher quality service for the American people,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I mean, this one thing alone should win us the midterm.
“Many left-wing critics predicted that the states would not participate in our most favored nation initiative, and some of the blue states tried not to, but they couldn’t help it when you’re getting your drugs for 70, 80, 90% less.”
Trump cited a White House Council Economic Advisers estimate that states would save Medicaid $64 billion over the next 10 years.
The White House estimates that the broader MFN initiative will save the government $529 billion over a decade.
Big Pharma also agreed to offer discounts for certain drugs for Americans without insurance on the new “TrumpRx” platform.
“We are rescuing state budgets with this program,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, the country’s Medicare and Medicaid administrator.
“The $50 billion in pharmaceutical prices that they are paying after rebates is crowding out schools and roads and long-term care and rural care,” Oz said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat, said he viewed the initiative as consistent with what “my party was promising and prioritizing for decades.
“Every nation is judged, every civilization is judged based upon how it cares for the poorest members of society,” Kennedy said. “President Trump just mentioned that the poverty levels have dropped to the lowest level in history during his term.
“That was the signature imperative for our party, and yet President Trump has actually achieved that in two short years, and now he’s creating another giant benefit for the poorest members of our society.”
