The White House is now pressing forward with a proposition to significantly trim the costs of medications in the country by linking them to those of other countries and broadening the scope of a previous measure.
In a Sunday tweet, President Donald Trump said he signed a new executive order that requires that for Medicare Part B and D prescription drugs, the government will pay a "most-favored-nation" price, the Independent reported.
A version of the guideline had been approved by Trump over a month ago but disclosed he would keep the regulation so the pharmaceutical sector could introduce an alternative.
The "most-favored country" directive will guarantee that the U.S. can avail itself of the same affordable prices that the so-called Big Pharma offers to other countries. Trump said on Twitter that the days of "global free-riding" at the expense of the U.S. are over.
Trump has often said he would go after the Big Pharma, which has substantially gained from the fact the U.S. government does not control prices, unlike other nations where regulators negotiate prices for every medicine.
The marching orders said the government is the world's biggest customer of prescription medicines but yet it shells out more cash compared with other countries. The latest guideline, green-lit less than two months before the Nov. 3 presidential polls, would override an order Trump signed on July 24.
A report released in 2019 by the House Ways and Means panel found individual prices of medicines in the country ranged from 708 to a whopping 4,833 percent higher compared with the combined mean price in 11 other nations studied.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies and conservative groups strongly disagree with the most-favored nations' proposal over the method it would essentially import foreign countries' price regulations.
Biotechnology Innovation Organization chief executive officer Michelle McMurry-Heath said her trade organization will apply every measure available, including legal action if need be, to oppose what she calls as the U.S. government's "risky foreign price control" plan, Politico reported.
