COBB COUNTY, Ga. — President Donald Trump announced a plan on Monday that he says will help lower the cost of prescription drugs by tying prices in the U.S. to other countries where people pay less.
But Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray found that the new executive order does not take immediate action to do that.
Pharmacist Jeff Smith said it’s the hardest part of the job at Mableton Pharmacy in Cobb County -- patients who can’t afford the high cost of their medications.
“The first thing is once they hear the price, you just see the glaze in their eyes,” Smith said. “They’re just thinking about their next meal or paying the lights,” he said
Trump signed the executive order Monday for what he calls “most favored nation prescription drug pricing.”
He said he wants to cut the costs Americans pay for the drugs to be more like other countries.
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“Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries. Which is what we were doing. We’re subsidizing other health care countries where they paid a small fraction for the same drug,” President Trump said.
The order also sets a 30-day deadline for drug-makers to voluntarily lower prices to be closer to what other countries pay.
A 2024 U.S. government study found that for every dollar paid in other countries for drugs, consumers in the U.S. pay $2.78.
“The question remains, is this the right way to address that problem?” asked Courtney Yarbrough, professor with Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
Yarbrough told Gray that American dollars drive drug research.
“There’s concerns that there will be fewer new drugs to be had at all. So, if you dramatically undermine the profitability of an entire industry like this, the logical consequence is that there’s going to be less innovation,” Yarbrough said.
Stephen Ubl President & CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the organization that represents drug makers, said: “The Administration is right to use trade negotiations to force foreign governments to pay their fair share for medicines.”
But he also put the blame back at home on the middlemen in the U.S. market between manufacturers and pharmacists.
“The U.S. is the only country in the world that lets PBMs, insurers, and hospitals take 50% of every dollar spent on medicines,” Ubl said.
The order essentially says the government will start negotiating with drugmakers, and if that doesn’t work, Trump will start rulemaking to require it.
The president tried that in his previous term, but it was thrown out by the courts.
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