Americans ‘will pay the lowest price’ for drugs: Donald Trump

President Donald Trump has announced he is ending the “injustice” riddling the United States healthcare system and bringing “colossal savings” to Americans – declaring “we will pay the lowest price” for drugs among developed nations.

“My administration is issuing two groundbreaking rules to very dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs for the American people – especially for our cherished seniors,” he said.

“The unprecedented reforms we’re completing today are the direct result of the historic drug pricing executive orders I signed in July.

“For generations, the American people have been abused by big pharma and their army of lawyers, lobbyist and bought-and-paid-for politicians.”

President Trump said the first action would save American seniors billions by preventing “famous middlemen” from “ripping off Medicare patients” with higher prescription prices.

“Currently, drug companies provide large discounts on the price of prescription medicines, including nearly $40 billion in rebates,” he said.

“Yet often middlemen stop those discounts from going to the patients which is what we’re interested in, not the middlemen.

“The patients are now going to be getting the benefit instead of these very wealthy individuals.

“Patients pay very high prices, and they have for many years, although we brought it down for the first time in 51 years, with the cost adding up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year per patient.

“Today’s action ends this injustice and requires that these discounts go directly to people.

“This will save patients up to 30 per cent, could be 40 per cent, could be 50 per cent, could be much higher than that.

“These are numbers that nobody has ever even contemplated.”

President Trump said the second action being finalised today was a transformation of the way the US pays for drugs to “end global freeloading on the backs on American citizens and American patients”.

“Until now, Americans have often been charged more than twice as much for the exact same drug as other medically advanced countries,” he said.

“In case after case, our citizens pay massively higher prices and other nations pay for the same exact pill, from the same factory, effectively subsiding socialism abroad with skyrocketing prices at home.

“There’ll never be anything like this, I just hope they keep it, I hope they have the courage to keep it, because the powerful drug lobby, big pharma, is putting pressure on people like you wouldn’t believe.

“Medicare will now look at the price other developed nations pay for their drugs, and instead of paying the highest price on the list, and we’re substantially higher than any other country in the world, we will pay the lowest price.

“In other words, we take the lowest price and we match whatever the lowest price is, leading to colossal savings for all Americans.”

President Trump said he would also end a program called the Unapproved Drugs Initiative which he said led to prices being lifted by 1,000 per cent to 5,000 per cent.

“In addition, today I’m taking one more historic action to hold down drug prices,” he said.

“In the past drug companies have been allowed to identify certain very old, generic drugs that have been widely available for decades and exploit a misguided program called Unapproved Drugs Initiative.

“I am announcing that we are ending the Unapproved Drugs Initiative.”

Видео Americans ‘will pay the lowest price’ for drugs: Donald Trump канала Sky News Australia