President Donald Trump this morning signed an order that he said would reduce prescription drug prices “almost immediately.”
“Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!” He wrote in a social media post previewing the order.
He said this would be achieved by instituting a most-favored-nation policy “whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.”
The benefits of the move will primarily apply to those on Medicare Part B, a federal insurance plan that offers coverage at a monthly premium. The Most Favored Nation Drug Policy requires drugmakers to offer Medicare Part B the lowest price among certain peer nations for a slate of high-cost prescription medications.
Trump was critical of the pharmaceutical industry in the announcement, saying that companies had forced Americans to bear the brunt of research and development costs for years.
“The Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the ‘suckers’ of America, ALONE,” Trump wrote. “Campaign Contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many years.”
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According to a 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services, Americans pay higher prices for prescription drugs than people anywhere else in the world—more than twice as much on average. For the most expensive medications, the disparity is even greater.
The executive order reinstates Trump’s 2020 plan, which had similar parameters and was partway through the rule-making process when he left office.
According to the current plan, Medicare Part B must be offered the lowest price, after adjusting for volume and differences in national gross domestic product, for any of the listed drugs that the manufacturer also sells in certain peer countries.
Trump’s original plan, a seven-year pilot program, would have saved $87.8 billion for the federal government, state governments, and Medicare beneficiaries over the test period, according to the Office of the Actuary within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The plan Trump put forward in 2020 faced four lawsuits and a nationwide preliminary injunction that prevented it from being implemented on schedule.
Some bipartisan lawmakers have taken up the most-favored-nation concept for drug pricing, independent of Trump’s executive order.
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced a bill on May 5 that would prohibit drug companies from selling any prescription medication in the United States at a price higher than the average price charged in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
The proposed law would penalize violators with a fine of 10 times the difference between the U.S. price and the average of the peer countries for each unit sold.
Hawley said the bill aimed to build on Trump’s 2020 plan. “This bipartisan legislation would continue that work to end a drug market that favors Big Pharma, make prescriptions affordable again, and empower Americans to get the care they need,” Hawley said in a joint statement with Welch.
“No one should ever be forced to choose between paying for the prescriptions they need or putting food on the table,” Welch wrote, decrying the up to five-fold difference between U.S. drug prices and those charged elsewhere.
—Joseph Lord and Lawrence Wilson
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