WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump announced Friday that all 50 states along with Puerto Rico and DC have opted into his \u201cmost favored nations\u2019\u2019 drug-price initiative to lower prescription costs for Medicaid recipients.<\/p>\n
The president strong-armed 26 major pharmaceutical companies into enacting the special drug pricing for federal agencies to match the rates paid in eight other high-income nations, including Canada, Germany, Japan and the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all succumbed to the dollar,\u201d Trump said of the US states and others who have now joined what he called his \u201cGENEROUS\u201d initiative, passing along the cost saving to state-administered Medicaid programs covering roughly 70 million Americans.<\/p>\n
President Trump announces strides in his Rx program at the White House on Friday. Samuel Corum \u2013 Pool via CNP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will save states billions and billions of dollars per year on drugs and allow them to invest those savings in providing better healthcare and higher quality service for the American people,\u201d Trump said in the Oval Office. \u201cI mean, this one thing alone should win us the midterm.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany left-wing critics predicted that the states would not participate in our most favored nation initiative, and some of the blue states tried not to, but they couldn\u2019t help it when you\u2019re getting your drugs for 70, 80, 90% less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump cited a White House Council Economic Advisers estimate that states would save Medicaid $64 billion over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n
The White House estimates that the broader MFN initiative will save the government $529 billion over a decade.<\/p>\n
Big Pharma also agreed to offer discounts for certain drugs for Americans without insurance on the new \u201cTrumpRx\u201d platform.<\/p>\n
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the nation\u2019s poorest will benefit the most from the move. AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin<\/p>\n
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who administers the US\u2019s Medicaid and Medicare programs, said state budgets are being \u201crescued\u201d by the program. Samuel Corum\/POOL via CNP\/INSTARimages.com<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are rescuing state budgets with this program,\u201d Dr. Mehmet Oz, the country\u2019s Medicare and Medicaid administrator.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe $50 billion in pharmaceutical prices that they are paying after rebates is crowding out schools and roads and long-term care and rural care,\u201d Oz said.<\/p>\n
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat, said he viewed the initiative as consistent with what \u201cmy party was promising and prioritizing for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery nation is judged, every civilization is judged based upon how it cares for the poorest members of society,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cPresident Trump just mentioned that the poverty levels have dropped to the lowest level in history during his term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the signature imperative for our party, and yet President Trump has actually achieved that in two short years, and now he\u2019s creating another giant benefit for the poorest members of our society.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump announced Friday that all 50 states along with Puerto Rico and DC have opted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[12,97,252,253,1341,111,194],"class_list":["post-852771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-donald-trump","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-medicaid","tag-politics","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}