President Trump: Say “NO!” to Socialist Rx Drug Pricing Scheme!

Today, U.S. Senate Democrats called on the new Trump Administration to continue Medicare drug price “negotiations” to lower costs, a scheme included in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (click here to see video). The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity urges President Trump to say “NO!” on pursuing the IRA’s socialist prescription drug pricing scheme.

This price control mandated in the IRA is called a “negotiation” by proponents of the law, but there is no actual choice involved. A drug manufacturer must submit to the government-imposed price control or subject sales of that drug to a confiscatory 95 percent excise tax. That is no choice at all.

This will create harmful distortions to our healthcare system and our economy, which ultimately will jeopardize Americans’ health, diminish America’s global leadership on medical innovation, and deprive Americans of access to as-yet-undiscovered therapies and medicines.

There is nothing wrong with market competition bringing down the price of prescription drugs. But government price controls will lead to minimal production, scarcity of medicines, and eventually government rationing. The alternative, a 95 percent drug tax, will mean a massive increase in the price of the medicine for everyone in America, along with the prospect of other harmful distortions to our healthcare system and our economy.

A new administration presents an opportunity to say NO! to socialist prescription drug pricing schemes.

Instead of pursuing heavy-handed socialist drug-pricing schemes, Congress should work to lower Medicare premiums, increase plan choices, and require insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to share discounts, rebates, and savings with patients. It’s also time that lawmakers take a hard look at foreign countries who are buying U.S.-developed medicines for pennies on the dollar. American patients shouldn’t be subsiding the rest of the world’s access to medicines.