Pres says he is ordering Medicare to buy Rx drugs at the prices other countries pay. Says it will "end global freeloading" on the backs of American seniors.

Mark Knoller Twitter ^ | July 24 2020 | Mark Knoller

[rintintin]

Pres says he is ordering Medicare to buy Rx drugs at the prices other countries pay. Says it will "end global freeloading" on the backs of American seniors.

[miliantnutcase]

Hell yeah, Wally World did this exact same thing to Pepsi years ago. They dictated we will only pay x number of dollars per case, and said, “if you don’t want your product in our stores that’s on you”.

[Dogbert41]

The age of subsidizing the whole freaking world on our backs is ending!

[Comanche]

$100 for 50 test strips, crazy.

[rollo tomasi]

The current Executive Branch is finally emulating other countries when negotiating price points with the pharms.

The pharms can always tell governments to get bent if they don't like the price point, however, they don't. Since the Federal government is the largest single payer in our country, it's only reasonable that the body negotiates price. Do you have a problem with that?

[rintintin]

Are the boys at the Bulwark going to be mad?

[Buckeye McFrog]

Hell yeah, Wally World did this exact same thing to Pepsi years ago. They dictated we will only pay x number of dollars per case, and said, “if you don’t want your product in our stores that’s on you”.

Yup. That's how their buyers have played the game for years. They know you aren't going to find anybody else who can place an order as large as they can, so unless you are actually going to lose money on each unit you swallow hard and take the deal. Trump is doing the same thing here.

[JonPreston]

DJT at his finest!

[livius]

Sounds reasonable to me. I think a lot of lower income black seniors are going to like this, and he should push it among them.

Companies deserve money for drugs they‘ve developed or promoted, but most of these have been out for years and are for common problems And already prescribed in generic form. So the companies probably don’t make a lot of money on them anyway, depending on the patent.

But we need to compensate R&D which is very expensive and can last for years. The pharm companies won’t and can’t do it unless they get compensated (to pay the microbiologists, in other words).

[Governor Dinwiddie]

President Trump make baby Kristol cry.

[Regulator]

I don’t recall, but it’s the kind of idiot misinterpretation of “free markets” that they would buy into.

Selling the drugs is not an entitlement. Only getting them.

We can discuss that too, but currently, that’s the way it is.

[HombreSecreto]

So the federal government can tell private companies to sell goods at the same price the government foreign governments pay.

I am sure there is a word for that.
-------------------------------------------------------

Sanity.

per shiffhardin.com:

"Most favored nation clauses (MFNs), sometimes also referred to as most favored customer clauses, are agreements in which a supplier agrees to treat a particular customer no worse than all other customers (see Standard Clause, General Contract Clauses, Most Favored Customer (www.practicallaw.com/8-510-7389))."

[Gen.Blather]

“Love it. The companies will have to raise the rates of other countries to off-set their losses.”

Other countries have socialized medicine. In order to get a drug approved for the American market the producer of that drug must agree to sell the drug into foreign controlled price markets at a set level. They only sell a preset allotment. When those drugs arrive they are frequently resold over the internet to purchasers in the US at a substantial reduction over the US price. This is why common drugs like heart medications are unavailable in countries like Canada.

Because of the incredibly high cost of getting a drug approved for sale in the US the sales of drugs to other countries are at a loss to the producer. In exchange for doing this, the producer gets to charge whatever they can get in the US market.

If you want to lower the cost of drugs the place to start is with the mandated high costs for getting an approval. Most of what the government insists on is simply wasted money going to “rent” seekers who lobbied that each drug would go through their testing regimen. Because that regimen is proprietary they can charge whatever they want for it. After all, you either use their regimen or your drug does not get approved.

This is a complex issue. For the government to buy at what amounts to less than cost, the drugs would quickly become unavailable because the company would be out of business. This will not happen.

[OIFVeteran]

Or, heaven forbid, they might have to make less of a profit.

[amihow]

Keep saying. Big difference between a globalist corporatist greed economy and a reasonably regulated free market economy. Little trust busting could help too.

[Vigilanteman]

Not exactly. Canada and other countries cut sweetheat deals to buy Rx fr their national schemes. Drug companies can afford to do such deals because their monopolies are subsidized by American consumers.

The result is that other countries will probably see price increases without the captive American consumer subsidy. This is more efficient than asking U.S. customs to stop obstructing re-import of drugs from Canada. It is also good politics.

[ETCM]

Presidents have been saying this for decades, as have leaders in the house and senate. Sounds great. No one wants to be ripped off while other countries get better prices. So, why hasn’t this happened?

There are middle men conspiring with the pharmaceutical distributors, paying huge kickbacks in the form of “rebates” while keeping the billable cost high. The system is corrupt, and the system is paying lawmakers, even if indirectly, to look the other way. The Board of Directors of pharmaceutical companies are filled with powerful people in the healthcare industry (a direct conflict of interest), lobbyists, families of politicians, former politicians, etc. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries are a swamp, in and of themselves.

[rollo tomasi]

Then pharms need to start playing hardball with those socialist systems to expand their cash flow, which means foreign governments may want to examine their structure since Trump wants to put the Federal "foot down"... The citizen consumer is stuck in the middle, Trump is trying to liberate but there are more variables besides the cost to market. How do you tell personnel injury attorneys to "fly away"? Can't tell you how many promising drugs were not released after passing trials due to complications affecting 1 user out of 50,000.

[BiteYourSelf]

It’s about who’s paying for it.
I can buy insulin at Walmart over the counter for $25 apiece but if insurance pays for it it’s $200.

[Wuli]

Yes.

It is the move I have been arguing for.

Big pharma can solve the problem, just quit accepting government dictated prices from other countries, and if those countries don’t like it cut them off from their drugs.

Then we could see who blinks first - big pharma or the other countries.

[Sooth2222]

Many of the largest pharmaceutical companies aren't even based in the US.

Novartis is Swiss, Roche is Swiss, Sanofi is French, and Glaxo is based in the UK. Where they are located doesn't seem to affect their research spending.