Help is on the way for high drug prices

The White House • August 10, 2018

Help is on the way for high drug prices

We live in a golden era for American medicine, senior health leaders from across the Trump Administration point out. Incredible new medicines and technologies improve and extend our lives. Yet all Americans at some point will face the burden of paying high prices for prescription drugs, say HHS Secretary Alex Azar, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, and CMS Administrator Seema Verma.

President Trump has a message for these Americans: Help is on the way. “One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs,” the President said earlier this year. In May, he unveiled his blueprint for achieving just that. 

The “American Patients First” blueprint has a few important principles to guide the Administration’s plan of action:

• Encouraging innovation, such as by streamlining the approval process for over-the-counter drugs
• Promoting real price competition, including by advancing “biosimilars” and generics where appropriate
• Addressing foreign freeloading, including the practice of subsidizing countries that use socialized healthcare to offload costs on Americans

Help is on the way for Americans facing high drug prices.

The plan: See President Trump’s “American Patients First” blueprint

An update on Judge Brett Kavanaugh

Senate leaders plan to hold a vote on President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, by early fall. Meanwhile, a diverse group of legal scholars, editorial boards, and public figures have called for his swift confirmation.

“Judge Kavanaugh has an exemplary record that suggests he will help to restore the Supreme Court to its proper, more modest role in American politics and society,” The Wall Street Journal’s editors write. His 300-some decisions on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia “reflect a great allegiance to the words of the Constitution,” the Chicago Tribune adds.

Most important, he receives rave reviews from those who know him best: his former students and fellow members of the legal community. “I’m a liberal feminist lawyer,” Lisa Blatt writes. “Sometimes a superstar is just a superstar.” 

What to know about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks

First Lady Melania Trump visits with four-year-old Essence Overton during her visit to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee | July 24, 2018