Remarks by President Trump on Delivering Lower Prescription Drug Prices for All Americans | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Secretary? Go ahead, please.

    SECRETARY AZAR: Well, thank you, Mr. President. What an extremely exciting day for American healthcare. On top of the news that you just made, today, Pfizer will be filing an application for an emergency use authorization with the FDA for their COVID-19 vaccine that appears to be 95 percent effective. Within weeks, we could have a decision from FDA, and within 24 hours of that, we will have started distributing millions of doses of safe and effective vaccine to begin protecting our most vulnerable across America.

    You know, the President mentioned his passion for getting drug prices down. And I can tell you, I've seen that firsthand. When I become Secretary in January 2018, the very first meeting we had in the Oval Office was to put together our plan for tackling drug prices. It was - the number-one priority, the President said, for us was getting drug prices down. And in that meeting, we came up with the idea for Most Favored Nations status and for insuring that the discount prices that big pharma was giving to middlemen would get passed on to America's seniors at the pharmacy counter.

    And almost two and half years ago, in May, the President laid out the most comprehensive vision for reforming drug pricing in American history. The President's blueprint was clear: We need to put American patients first, and our drug pricing system too often puts them last. The system had to change. The blueprint called for tackling foreign freeriding, for bringing down high list prices, for reducing out-of-pocket costs, and for better negotiation by our government programs. That's what the President has delivered over the last two years already, and that's what the President is delivering today with these new, historic reforms.

    We're ending a broken system of shadowy kickbacks that drove prices higher and higher every single year and left so many patients shocked at the out-of-pocket costs that they owe at the pharmacy. We're replacing that system with up-front discounts in Medicare, delivered straight to the patient at the pharmacy counter.

    We're bringing negotiation to the way we pay for the most costly drugs in Medicare, fixing a system where the government just took the price that drug companies offered, paying about twice as much as comparable countries. We're ending a program that's been used by drug companies to jack up prices on older drugs.

    The President's actions today, boldly take on the big drug companies, take on the middlemen, and take on foreign countries freeriding off of Americans.

    If you don't believe how fiercely special interests have fought these efforts, you must not have watched any TV in Washington over the last couple of years. Special interest have run millions of dollars in ads against the President's drug pricing initiatives.

    Mr. President, they underestimated me and they sure as the devil underestimated you. About two years ago, just over in the Roosevelt Room, the President signed legislation to ban pharmacy gag clauses, alongside me and his drug pricing advisors.

    That included my friend and colleague Dan Best, who passed away two years ago this month. And he devoted his life to lowering drug costs for American patients, putting them at the center of our healthcare system, just as President Trump has done. And he was one of the key driving forces behind the rules that we are announcing today. I wish Dan could have been here today, Mr. President, but today's actions are a lasting legacy for him and for you.

    The President's historic actions will transform drug pricing forever and build the system that American - the American people deserve, a system that puts American patients first.


    Thank you so much, Mr. President, for making today possible.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Alex, very much. Thank you.

    Seema, please.

    ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Masks and hoop earrings don't work well. (Laughter.)

    Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership. And let me take a moment to give some context for today's announcement. From day one, President Trump made it very clear that he wanted to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to every American. And the most important thing is that he wasn't afraid to take on the special interest groups to get this goal accomplished.

    And in the absence of any meaningful legislative support, this administration has delivered real, tangible results. Premiums down in Medicare by 34 percent, the lowest in 14 years. And some areas saw declines almost as much as 60 percent. We stabilized the exchange, lowering premiums for the first time, and brought back more plan choices.

    We have set forth a pathway to make the American healthcare system work more efficiently to deliver better quality and lower costs, tackling longstanding problems that no other administration had the guts to do.

    And the list is long: price transparency so that patients know what they're getting charged before they get their care; portable, digital health records, so patients have their complete medical history right on their phones; reducing regulatory burden so that doctors can spend more time with patients. The healthcare system will work better because of what this administration and President Trump has accomplished.

    And as the President noted, our achievements on drug pricing are no less sweeping and unprecedented. Thanks to regulatory changes in 2017, the Part D premiums have dropped to some of the lowest rates in seven years, saving beneficiaries over $1.9 billion in premiums.

    And we're also bringing price transparency to Medicare so that doctors and patients have pricing information when drugs are prescribed so that patients can get the best deal.

    The President's Senior Savings Model has our Medicare beneficiaries cheering this year as they are selecting plans in this year's open enrollment. They have over 1,600 plans that are offering insulin for just $35 a month or less. And that is a massive 66 percent savings.

    Today's announcement is about Part B, where the Medicare program has been nothing but a powerless price taker, and the problem is simple. While there are market forces and negotiations that serve to reduce cost in other parts of the healthcare system, it just doesn't exist in Part B, which pays for drugs that you get in a doctor's office: cancer drugs and other infusions.

    In Part B, American seniors and taxpayers pay whatever drug companies want to charge. And doctors also get paid a percentage add-on. So the higher the drug costs, the more they get paid, giving an overt incentive to prescribe higher-priced drugs and for manufacturers to increase those prices. And so it's no wonder that American seniors are paying twice as much as what other countries are paying.

    And because of this, over the past five years, Medicare spending for Part B drugs has gone up by 55 percent on average. And drug spending in Part B is responsible for over a third of the premiums that our seniors pay. So the bottom line is: Higher drug costs lead to higher premiums and higher copays. Doctors do well, drug companies do well, but patients pay more. This effort is going to save over $85 billion over seven years, and saving seniors over $28 billion as well.


    And so I want to thank the President for being a problem solver, willing to be - to think big and to act boldly on behalf of the American patients. His record of success over the last four years is a testimony to that mentality.

    Thank you.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Seema. Thank you very much.

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