President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration’s new plan to impose price controls on prescription medications was inspired by hearing from a friend about the low cost of weight loss medication in the United Kingdom compared to what the same person paid for the same medication in America.
Trump used the bizarre anecdote as he was explaining the genesis of the executive order he signed just before leaving the White House for a trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It purports to impose what he described as a “most-favored nation “ policy on pharmaceutical prices by insisting that manufacturers charge Americans the same price as the lowest-paying developed countries, all of which have single-payer health systems that can use their market power to negotiate prices directly with drug makers.
