North Carolinians are worried. For months, commentators and political advertisements have fear mongered about the effect a second Trump administration will have on their prescription drug prices. Many believe he will let the Obamacare-funded health insurance of 1 million North Carolinians lapse. Others are worried he will gut Medicaid benefits for the 3 million North Carolina residents who depend on them. Now, with Trump as president elect, some feel like they are just counting the days until their life-saving drugs are impossible to obtain.
But Trump’s healthcare agenda is far less radical than some are led to believe. In fact, there is reason to believe that Trump will lower prescription drug prices for the most cash-strapped North Carolinians in short order.
Drug companies keep price gouging, as prices have increased almost 40% over the last 10 years, far outpacing inflation. A survey of North Carolinians found that 54% are somewhat or very worried about prescription drug prices, including 65% of those making less than $50,000. The US is in a far worse place for prescription drug affordability than other developed countries, paying 2.78 times more for the same medications.
The good news is that Trump has a proven track record of working to reduce drug prices for North Carolinians.
In 2020, Trump signed four executive orders addressing this problem. The orders discounted insulin and epinephrine for low-income Americans, allowed the importation of safe, lower-cost drugs from Canada, and eliminated backdoor deals between drug manufacturers and pharmacies seeking to profit off available discounts, rather than pass them along to patients. Trump capped insulin prices at $35 per month.
By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration worked hand in hand with Big Pharma by suing companies, called Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), that companies and government agencies hire to go head-to-head against the drug companies and negotiate their prices down. The Biden-Harris Federal Trade Commission also issued a gut-wrenching report against these groups, which one dissenting commissioner stated “was plagued by process irregularities and concerns over the substance — or lack thereof — of the original order.” Going after these companies that have a documented history of reducing drug prices may be helping Big Pharma further line its pockets, but it’s burning a whole through ours.
By contrast, Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has pledged to take on Big Pharma.
In a September op-ed, he wrote that “legislators should cap drug prices so that companies can’t charge Americans substantially more than Europeans pay.”
Kennedy supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices to get the same lower costs that other developed countries have. He is a firm opponent of pharmaceutical price gouging and has a history of making corporations and drug companies pay their fair share.
Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers’ stocks plummeted after Trump announced the nomination of RFK for HHS Secretary. While RFK will not ban vaccines as some claim, he will hold manufacturers accountable, and for that reason, these companies are afraid their profits will crater under RFK’s leadership at the HHS.
Alarmist rhetoric about what Trump will do to drug prices is largely false. Media figures who claim that Trump will increase the already sky-high prices of prescription drugs should look at his record. As Americans await Trump’s inauguration, they have the benefit of four years of presidency to look back on as an indicator of how he will perform in his second term. Trump worked to lower prescription drug prices while in the White House, and his ideas were so good that the current Democratic administration has even taken credit for his policies.
North Carolinians, especially low-income North Carolinians, have nothing to fear in a Trump presidency. His policies will not raise prices; if anything, they will lower them. Trump has no plans to dismantle Medicare or Medicaid, and claims to the contrary are most likely a scare tactic to garner support against Republicans. Trump and his cabinet have promised to take on Big Pharma and lower prescription drug prices, and we have more than enough reason to believe them.