After a campaign of bleating about high drug prices for Americans and how he was going to do ... things ... about that, it turns out that the team of drug industry advocates and insiders Donald Trump assigned to tackle the problem of high drug prices have come up with a draft executive order that largely scraps worrying about such things and instead focuses on giving the drug companies whatever they want.
The proposals identify some issues that have stoked public outrage — such as the high out-of-pocket costs for medicines — but it largely leaves the drug industry unscathed. In fact, the four-page document contains several proposals that have long been championed by the industry, including strengthening drugmakers’ monopoly power overseas and scaling back a federal program that requires pharmaceutical companies to give discounts to hospitals and clinics that serve low-income patients. [...]Several of the proposals appear to reflect that industry influence. For example, the document directs the United States trade representative to conduct a study of price differences between the United States and other countries, and to review trade agreements that may need to be revised “to promote greater intellectual property protection and competition in the global market.”
The roll back of a program to ensure clinics serving low-income Americans can provide their patients with more affordable drugs is an especially nice touch. We can call it the "Screw individual poor people one-by-one" healthcare plan.
Anyhoo, it looks like that big, dramatic meeting Trump had to decide what to do about rising drug prices has—in a truly unexpected switcheroo—decided that the real problem is that drug companies have to follow too many regulations these days. For anyone who is even the slightest bit shocked at this news, smelling salts are now available for a modest (large) fee.