Posted on 01/13/2017 6:19:27 AM PST by GIdget2004
President-elect Donald Trump reopened an awkward division over high drug prices with fellow Republicans during his first press briefing this week -- putting lawmakers on defense on an issue they've tried to tamp down.
GOP lawmakers reacted in a way they've become accustomed to over the past year: Sorry, but we haven't seen his comments. Yet, Trump's call to "create new bidding procedures for the drug industry" puts Republicans in a tough spot, since it's a measure they traditionally oppose and Democrats historically support.
"We can agree to disagree at times," Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), a key Trump ally in the House, said. "I am not someone who believes the government should set pricing, as in price controls. I believe in a free market."
Democrats were more gleeful.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) highlighted the comments on the Senate floor and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested Democrats and the president-elect could work together to give the Medicare program bargaining power.
The skyrocketing price of prescription drugs is among the public's top health concerns, as it's hitting them where it hurts -- their pocketbooks. And lawmakers have responded by berating pharmaceutical CEOs in hearings and launching investigations.
Presidential candidates railed against the high costs of drugs on the campaign trail, and both Sanders and Hillary Clinton proposed allowing Medicare to negotiate drugs. So did Trump in the early days of his campaign, although his healthcare platform never included the idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
He was.
I agree. He isn’t conservative and never was, he isn’t republican, he isn’t democrat, he isn’t progressive.
The biggest and brightest thing he is, is a businessman.
His business now is running the Executive Branch for the American People. As that Chief Executive Officer, I do believe he will bring what is best to the table and we balance it out from there.
Trumps knows greed when he see’s it. Trump knows the cost of research, knows where the funding comes from, and blasting drugmakers to come to terms with some accountability if only a first step.
I’ve read that we pay top dollar for drugs while the world pays far less for their product.
Drug companies do need to be looked at. How can Canada pay less? Drugs that have been out there for years only go up in price? I am not against making a profit, but I am against making a gross profit off of people who are ill.
The drug companies buy these represetatives.
Clean the swamp!
A few hours on google and most of your questions will be answered.
My guess is that sales of existing drugs pay for the research for the new ones. If you want new drugs, that is.
If businesses and small business owners can deduct the cost of health care it is only logical and proper that anyone can do the same.
What about people with what are not considered pre-existing conditions who were once insured before ACA and could not be removed from the pool who would now be cast to the wind as a pre-existing condition leper?
Health savings accounts are just a foolish gimmick that go the long way around the barn to say that health care costs are tax deductible.
The health insurance racket needs some consumer protections. Health care in general requires consumer protections. There is too much money and too much cost to allow it to self-police and avoid conflicts of interest.
I’m waiting to see the concise two-pager but don’t see why it isn’t out already.
In Place of Nations by John le Carre
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/InPlace_Nations.html
Because of patent protection created by government, there is no real free market to begin with.
“I think the issue is more complicated than that.
The costs involved in developing some drugs .. is hampered by the years and hours and processes used to produce a useable product. Sadly, it is the way drugs are developed. Staffing labs with equipment and skilled people to do the research takes considerable amounts of funds.”
IMO, a lot of things are more complicated than Trump appears to think they are. Drug development costs are staggering. Now, if the public is comfortable with rolling back some of the regulations and procedures, then I guess go for it, but don’t complain if/when some horrendous adverse reaction doesn’t get caught during scaled back pre-clinical trials.
Right!
If anyone knows what the correct price should be, it is our new government and president. Let them decide!
Same goes for deciding the optimum global temperature!
Yeah, let the “free market” decide. Manufacturer charges what he wants and the government pays or you die. That’s how it works, right?
No, you have accepted the idea that heathcare MUST be run by government. The replacement is the free market.
Sure it does. Some B-school grad decided he could get his next promotion by gouging customers by raising the price, figuring that his customer base was going to stick with the product they know. Same mentality behind the increase in diameter of toilet paper and paper towel roll inserts, the shrinkage of candy bars, and on and on and on.
“It will be a concise 2-pager that eliminates state lines and enables health savings accounts and maybe tax credits. People with chronic problems but without income go into a special pool. Stephen King referred to it as the dead pool.”
So what about what Stephen King calls it? I call it the welfare pool. We take care of the poor, but we do shouldn’t design the entire system for everyone else around them.
*Yeah, let the “free market” decide. Manufacturer charges what he wants and the government pays or you die. That’s how it works, right?*
I’m a physician and a conservative/libertarian. The free market is the preferred method for determining price, but it does have its limit. I don’t feel like it’s right to charge “what the market will bear” in all/most cases when the health of the disadvantaged is concerned.
Flame away.
Oh, I don’t know, really. What I really remember is Nancy Pelosi ‘mouthing’ something about “being deemed passed” when the PPACA bill came back from the Senate into House/Senate reconciliation. I remember the PPACA has hundreds of instances of “....at the Secretary’s [HHS]discretion...... And, I remember that no Republicans voted for it. Yeah, that kind of ‘mouthing’.
I don’t give a red tinker’s damn about what comes after PPACA. That abortion needs to be removed - quickly and completely, and then we can deal with the aftermath. What part of the Constitution says that the government has to subsidize healthcare? Why is it always “a bad law has to have a replacement?”
Don’t be foolish.
What new drugs? They only reconstitute formulas and rename to keep the patent going.
Oh and flame away they will. There are those who don’t understand any need for any regulation or restriction against rape of the people. I guess they have not been raped enough or have not yet had enough opportunity to dish out abuse of others ina self-serving way.
The presence of a Constitution suggests something better than anarchy and the absence of anarchy is some set of limited government and limited controls and standards. A lot just don’t see that.
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