Gesundheit! US Policymakers Finally Want to Stop Germans Robbing Us to Pay for Their Healthcare

At a conference I attended recently in DC, I had the chance to show a lot of my colleagues around the downtown monuments. For them, many from other countries, seeing the Lincoln, the Washington, the Capitol, was once in a lifetime – for me, it was Tuesday.

At one point, a German in the group – fatigue in his voice – asked me, “Tell me… How can Americans keep voting for Trump?” The term Trump was shorthand for Americans’ embracing nationalism and rejecting globalism, which seems oh-so backwards to our European cousins. I think he expected me to dance around his condescending question; instead I responded, “How can Americans not vote for Trump?”

Globalism, I explained, is a luxury that the rest of the world enjoys at the expense of the American taxpayer. The international “free” trade – thanks to our Navy – is very expensive indeed (almost $380 billion for 2027). Americans pay for 31 percent of the United Nations’ budget. Virtually all of our NATO allies have historically refused to pay their share – Germany is bad, but Luxembourg is the worst offender even though the microstate is the richest nation on Earth.

And these are just the official ways that American generosity subsidizes the modern global order. Meanwhile, the average American voted for Trump because he or she couldn’t afford housing, higher education, retirement, or healthcare.

Healthcare is particularly something that our European cousins love to condescendingly cluck their tongues at us about. That behavior isn’t just irritating; it’s infuriating. Europeans don’t pay less for medicine because they’re better than Americans; Europeans pay less for medicine because they mooch off Americans.

But luckily, many in the government are moving in the right direction. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) has introduced legislation, the Use Sovereignty to Reduce Rx Act, to finally end the practice of other countries leeching off American taxpayers to get artificially low prices for their medicine.

This legislation follows up on the President’s 2025 executive order about “Most Favored Nation” status regarding unfair pricing. Whereas the EO targeted domestic companies that charge Americans unfair prices compared to overseas, this bill targets foreign governments.

The bill’s language reads that “pharmaceutical price controls in foreign markets distort global trade flows and competition by depressing the prices of innovative drugs and exploiting pharmaceutical innovations researched and developed in the United States.”

Innovative scientists in the US have long done all the research that benefits the rest of the world. Foreign countries have imposed strict price controls that transfer the overwhelming cost of research and development to American consumers. We’ve long known this in general, but thanks to a recent report by the US Trade Representative, now we have the specifics about Germany’s “persistent underpayment” on our life-saving drugs.

Thanks to government mandates, U.S. net prices are up to four times higher than the prices for which Germans pay!

Sheehy’s bill would create a Chief Pharmaceutical Trade Negotiator at USTR to increase oversight of foreign drug-pricing policies. Every year, this office would release an annual report to Congress on the practices of high-income countries relating to the trade of American-developed pharmaceutical products. Then the USTR would submit to the Ways & Means and Finance committees plans to respond to offending high-income countries, which may include investigation under title III of the Trade Act of 1974.

This act empowers the federal government to impose tariffs or even sanctions. For those still absurdly waving the flag of “free trade!”, please remember: so-called free trade is very expensive for the US taxpayer.

Senators Ted Budd (R-NC) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) are cosponsors while Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington (TX-19) is leading the charge on companion legislation in the House.

This legislation is the latest in a series of Republicans realizing that we need to reassess how to pivot after decades of funding globalization. In the post-Cold War era, America offered a “new world order” of peace and partnership, which has not turned out as we had hoped it would. While our critics may criticize this 21st-century nationalism – either out of bigotry or simple greed – they offer no alternative solution.

America cannot continue to fund international organizations like NATO and the UN to our own detriment. We can’t pay for medicine for the rest of the world while healthcare at home has become completely unaffordable. Germany is the third-largest economy in the world – they can afford to pay their fair share.

Yep. I’ve said this for years. I saw it first hand when I worked for Medtronic for a year. Its the exact same thing with medical devices. American companies pay massive R&D costs. That cost has to be passed on in prices. The socialized schemes in various countries - especially though not exclusively European - then interfere with the market by capping prices way below what it would cost to recoup those R&D costs. So the companies then have no choice but to raise prices in America to allow them to pay for the R&D.

We could play that game too. Pick some European designed/made products and then artificially cap the price they may charge for them in our market. What’s that? I’m sorry. You can’t charge more than $100K for a Porsche/Ferrari/Lamborghini/Maseratti. Luxury handbags, shoes and dresses? Nope! You won’t be allowed to charge more than $100 bucks for any of those anymore.

I wonder how much they would like that. Probably about as much as we like them doing the same to American medical device and pharma companies.....or specifically targeting American big tech companies with regulations, investigations, fines, etc etc.

This article is garbage on so many levels. For brevities’ sake i’ll concentrate on the alleged German underpayment for drugs.

Germany, and many other countries, refuse to pay the pharma industries often extortionate prices.They set up a commision to calculate fair prices for every new drug, with higher prices for new drugs with added therapeutical benefits.The pharma concerns can take it or leave it, and guess what, they take the oh so low prices.

The US on the other hand doesn’t dare to regulate drug prices. That’s why the pharma companies basically charge whatever they want, see for example what Martin Shkreli did with Daraprim.Trump’s 2025 executive order changed very little. And in all likelihood not much will change in the future. Pharma lobbyists and Pharma PACs will see to that.

But misery loves company and so, to distract voters from the inflated drug prices in the US, Messrs. Sheehy, Todd and McCormick propose a bill to force foreign countries to pay just as much, because somehow, as the author says, they up to now mooched off American taypayers.

The American taypayers have been fleeced by the pharma companies, not by other countries. If this idiotic bill should go through nothing will change about that.

Or do you for one minute believe pharma is going to reduce prices in the US just because they make more money overseas?

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