Trump told the truth on stock prices. U.S. citizens should not be paying higher prices to subsidize how Pharma accepts the government dictated prices set in Canada and all over Europe.
The cure? Set government fixed prices here? No.
The cure is a simple rule that would say drug companies selling drugs here cannot sell them for an average price that is higher than the median of the government-fixed prices they are forced to accept in other countries.
They will start telling other countries they will have to either quit selling some of their drugs to them, or get some higher prices from them. In some cases their prices overseas WILL go up, and in some cases they will quit selling some drugs in some other countries. Meanwhile, until the rest of the world adopts market prices for drugs, U.S. prices will come down.
These days everyone says they're saying what Trump said (?!) but imho we all would do well to put a lot more effort into quoting him accurately. From the actual transcript here's the part where he said stuff about drug prices:
...I appreciate that from Ford. I appreciate it very much from Fiat Chrysler. I hope that General Motors will be following, and I think they will be.
I think a lot of people will be following. I think a lot of industries are going to be coming back. We have to get our drug industry coming back. Our drug industry has been disastrous. They're leaving left and right. They supply our drugs, but they don't make them here, to a large extent. And the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry, because they're getting away with murder.
Pharma. Pharma has a lot of lobbies and a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power, and there's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet, we don't bid properly. And we're going to start bidding and we're going to save billions of dollars over a period of time, and we're going to do that with a lot of other industries...
My take is that it seems he was not about to waste everyone's time with details about exactly who this "we" is and that he's talking about gov't procurement --although he may be talking about allowing drug price competition w/ overseas vendors (so much for Trump being a 'protectionist'). He's not a precise speaker because he never lets mere precision get in the way of being an effective speaker. After having seen how his leadership is translating into action I'm willing to wait and see how this pharma bid thing plays out.
So simple, right? They should just hit that "Easy" button that Staples sells.
The reality, however, is much different. Who will defend the intellectual property of the drug companies when they tell these countries what's what, as you suggest, and these same countries laugh as they ignore the patents and turn their generic, knock off, industries loose?
And when price controls are imposed on us, in an effort to deliver drugs for people and not for profit, where will innovation come from? I tried to think of an innovative therapy developed by a country with price controls but I couldn't come up with one. Quality of life and longevity will certainly improve when these evil profiteers are brought to heel.