President Donald Trump arrives at a ceremony to sign executive orders on prescription drug prices in the South Court Auditorium at the White House on July 24.
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesYour editorial board should rest assured that President Trump’s four executive orders issued July 24 will do little to change the status quo when it comes to drug pricing in the U.S. (“Trump’s Drug Price Panic,” July 27) President Trump’s signing ceremony was little more than a political stunt meant to stop his hemorrhaging support among senior voters. As you rightly point out, that’s the source of his panic, not the real harm inflicted on millions of families paying outrageous prices for prescriptions or struggling with higher premiums and deductible thanks to cost shifting.
None of President Trump’s orders address the root cause of high drug prices: the monopoly control drug corporations are granted that enable them to fix prices and avoid competition. It’s that preoccupation with protecting monopoly status that stymies innovation, not price controls. Just as we are seeing with Covid medicines and therapeutics, it’s largely public investment that fuels research and development, not the industry. Even before the pandemic, drug corporations spent more on marketing, CEO pay and protecting their own monopolies than they did on innovation.
President Trump is correct that our drug pricing system needs to be unrigged, but executive orders that take effect in some far-off future—or that may not be implemented at all because of legal challenges aren’t going to change anything.
Margarida Jorge
Lower Drug Prices Now
Washington
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August 03, 2020 at 12:54AM
https://www.wsj.com/articles/expect-little-from-trumps-drug-price-move-11596390888
Expect Little From Trump’s Drug-Price Move - Wall Street Journal
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