President Donald Trump used the story of an overweight friend getting weight-loss medication at a much lower cost overseas to illustrate why he’s working to cut prescription drug prices for Americans.
Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this week, the president said one of his “slightly overweight” friends purchased what Trump called a “fat shot” in London for significantly less money than in the U.S.
“He called me and he said, ‘Hey, strange thing happened. I just bought a drug, same company, same plant, same everything, everything was the same. In one case, I paid in New York $1,300 and in London, I’m paying $88,’” Trump recounted. “He said, ‘What’s going on?’”
The president said the friend, whom he did not name, was a “very smart” and “very rich guy.”
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Trump told Hannity he told his friend the “drug laws are very screwed up” and that he was “doing something about it.”
“He said, ‘You better, because this is crazy.’ He didn’t understand it, he didn’t understand why, and now he understands why, ‘cause he watched our news conference this morning, holding his breath, but he watched the news conference,” Trump said.
The press conference that Trump referenced was one held Monday where he unveiled an executive order seeking to make American drug prices on par with those in other countries. He told the story of the same friend during the press conference.
During his interview with Hannity, Trump said the discrepancy in drug prices in the U.S. compared to other countries was partly due to the “power of the drug companies,” but “a bigger part is the ruthlessness of other nations to screw the United States of America.”
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The executive order Trump signed instructed the U.S. trade representative and secretary of commerce to “take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Some of its other measures included giving “price targets” to drugmakers to ensure America “gets the best deal” and setting up a way for Americans to buy medication straight from manufacturers at a “Most-Favored-Nation” price.
The president has also taken aim at pharmacy benefit managers, often called the “middleman.”
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Trump told Hannity that Americans will “get a 50 to 90% reduction” in drug prices through the steps the administration plans to take.
In a report released early last year, Rand found the price of prescription drugs was 2.78 times more on average in the U.S. than those in 33 other countries.
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