Prognosis
Trump Proposes Setting Some Drug Prices Using Global Index
- Health care is major political issue ahead of midterm election
- President criticizes what he calls ‘global freeloading’
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President Donald Trump’s administration proposed cutting what Medicare pays for many costly drugs for cancer and other conditions to match lower prices paid by European countries, whose governments more strictly control pharmaceutical costs.
Trump said he wanted to stop “global freeloading” by other governments through the proposed change to Medicare. The program covers more than 50 million elderly or disabled Americans and in 2015 paid for about a third of the $325 billion the U.S. spent on pharmaceuticals, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.