LANSING (WKZO AM/FM) — It’s an issue that hits close to home with Pfizer and Perrigo in our own backyard. President Trump announced Friday his plans to reduce prescription drug prices with what he is calling the “most sweeping action in history”.
His plan involves eliminating middlemen and putting pressure on foreign countries to stop insisting that drug prices be lowered in their countries, which Trump claims pushes prices up in the U.S.
Larry Levitt with the Kaiser Family Foundation says the President’s outline includes requests for information, possible proposals, and items that would require congressional approval, several dozen question marks and not a lot of substance.
He says the drug firms charge more in the U.S. because they can, not because they can’t in other countries.
In the Democrats weekly address Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow says the President’s tax cuts have put 50-billion-dollars into the pockets of their CEO’s and top investors through stock buy-backs. Presciption rices have not been lowered at all.
She said Democrats are proposing three concrete moves to help keep prescription prices low. First, is legislation to allow Medicare to use its group purchasing power to negotiate the lowest drug prices.
Second, is to unrig the system to ensure Americans pay the lowest possible price at the pharmacy. A similar proposal has just been proposed in the Michigan State House by Allegan County State Rep. Mary Whiteford, which would end a policy that prevents pharmacists from recommending ways patients can save money by buying their drugs differently.
Stabenow’s third initiative is to push President Trump to lower the price of Naloxone, the life-saving drug that’s used to reverse opioid overdoses.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the price of drug stocks actually went up after Trump’s speech.
