by educatethis
Here are the three orders, all of which are a page and a half long.
Section 1. Purpose. One of the reasons pharmaceutical drug prices in the United States are so high is because of the complex mix of payers and negotiators that often separates the consumer from the manufacturer in the drug-purchasing process. The result is that the prices patients see at the point-of-sale do not reflect the prices that the patient’s insurance companies, and middlemen hired by the insurance companies, actually pay for drugs. Instead, these middlemen — health plan sponsors and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — negotiate significant discounts off of the list prices, sometimes up to 50 percent of the cost of the drug. Medicare patients, whose cost sharing is typically based on list prices, pay more than they should for drugs while the middlemen collect large “rebate” checks. These rebates are the functional equivalent of kickbacks, and erode savings that could otherwise go to the Medicare patients taking those drugs. Yet currently, Federal regulations create a safe harbor for such discounts and preclude treating them as kickbacks under the law. Fixing this problem could save Medicare patients billions of dollars. The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services has found that patients in the catastrophic phase of the Medicare Part D program saw their out-of-pocket costs for high-price drugs increase by 47 percent from 2010 to 2015, from $175 per month to $257 per month. Narrowing the safe harbor for these discounts under the anti-kickback statute will allow tens of billions in dollars of rebates on prescription drugs in the Medicare Part D program to go directly to patients, saving many patients hundreds or thousands of dollars per year at the pharmacy counter.
Americans spend more per capita on pharmaceutical drugs than residents of any other developed country. Americans often pay more for the exact same drugs, even when they are produced and shipped from the exact same facilities. One way to minimize international disparities in price is to increase the trade of prescription drugs between nations with lower prices and those with persistently higher ones. Over time, reducing trade barriers and increasing the exchange of drugs will likely result in lower prices for the country that is paying more for drugs. For example, in the European Union, a market characterized by price controls and significant barriers to entry, the parallel trade of drugs has existed for decades and has been estimated to reduce the price of certain drugs by up to 20 percent. Accordingly, my Administration supports the goal of safe importation of prescription drugs.
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-access-affordable-life-saving-medications/
It is the policy of the United States to enable Americans without access to affordable insulin and injectable epinephrine through commercial insurance or Federal programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, to purchase these pharmaceuticals from an FQHC at a price that aligns with the cost at which the FQHC acquired the medication.
Trump’s July 24th EOs equate to about 2 billion in profit loss for big pharma. Trump said today that he has made “very rich enemies” really mad. Big Pharma is the richest enemy of his now, that I can think of.
If Trump is a deepstate tool, these orders don’t make much sense. It doesn’t compute to preserve the establishment’s power and at the same time limit their profits in exchange for the People’s interest. Politicians have never put the people first, they have only protected the elite and Big Pharma, it’s an anomaly, a conspiracy, or an actual transfer of wealth back to the People.
I think the shit is about to hit the fan. This is from today's speech pic.twitter.com/u3sfzu9iLX
— WWG1WGA (@anoninTexas) August 6, 2020