President Trump signed yet another Presidential Executive Order this week. Trump signed an Executive Order to bring the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs in line with those paid by other nations around the world.
Two groups of people attacked President Trump for this action:
- Persons suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) willing to sacrifice their personal reputations and credibility for whatever the bogus cause of the day is to bash President Trump. They are using a false talking point, “Now Big Pharma will not have money for research and development costs!”
- Persons such as lobbyists and stockholders beholding to the Big Pharma industry.
While two others did not:
- The medical professionals of the American Medical Association (AMA).
- And “Big Pharma” of corporate America.
To understand what has been going on is a bit complex so we will try to simplify it.
In capitalist free market enterprise society corporations often set prices on their products/services based on the consumer’s ability to pay, but that can vary by geography where one lives.
For example, corporations (and regular folks like you) can make use of a website such as Census Reporter where they can learn about the demographics of two nearby communities as follows:
One is a small upscale town with a population of 3,500 with 32% of its residents having attained an education of a Bachelor’s degree or higher with a median household income of $80,000. Those living below the poverty line are 9%.
Contrast that first one with a major city of 150,000 (just 15 miles) away where they see only 23% of its residents have attained a Bachelor’s degree or higher with a median household income of $54,000. Those living below the poverty line are 23%.
Guess who is going to pay more for necessities like groceries and gasoline? If you guessed the smaller upscale community, you are right!
Now take the Big Pharma drug industry as a parallel example.
Even though most of the Big Pharma companies are based in the U.S., and most of the research and development happens here as well, many countries have dictated what they are willing to pay for these American-made drugs using their government run socialized medicine systems. So, essentially, what has been happening is Americans having been getting stuck with the entire bill for research and development for all of these Big Pharma drugs.
Much of the rest of the world refers to us as “Those rich Americans!” With that stereotype it is easy for them to rationalize, “Let them pay for it.”
President Trump just did a good job of explaining this scenario in an interview with Fox News personality Sean Hannity onboard Air Force 1.
“Trump reveals ‘most exciting part’ of the China deal” – Fox News
President Trump discusses his designation of making the U.S. a “Most Favored Nation” for drug pricing meaning Americans will no longer have to pay any more for drugs than any other country of the world. He discusses this in the last half of this 12 minute interview with Hannity aboard Air Force 1.
“Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Put American Patients First by Lowering Drug Prices and Stopping Foreign Free-riding on American Pharmaceutical Innovation” – The White House
CONCLUSION:
I know President Trump is telling the truth about this issue from several of my own personal health episodes I had with doctors now behind me.
The first happened when I was prescribed a pill that cost $125 each in the U.S. At the time I had a very good local doctor who sincerely cared about me. He asked me if I ever got time off from teaching to take a bus trip up to Canada where I could go buy my medications up there. I told him I did not. He told me a number of his elderly patients would take a bus up there to buy their meds once a month. My pill $125 American pill was 1/10th the cost up in Canada.
The second happened when I was at a different local doctor who would cry on my shoulder (figuratively) when we would visit about my health issues. I guess I got a bedside manner that causes people to open up to me. He was from a foreign country so I don’t think he understood the American business model for medicine as he should have. (Laughing)
One time he came in to my exam room all upset after his corporate superiors were all upset with him because they said “he was not billing enough tests for his patients.” A subsequent time he came in upset as his superiors told him “he was not prescribing enough drugs to his patients”.
I felt like saying, “HELLO! I’m right here!” Instead, I listened with a sympathetic ear.
I wound up leaving him not because of his honesty and childlike innocence but because he had prescribed statin drugs to me without addressing the terrible side effects I was having from them. He said I shouldn’t be having the ones I was having but other patients I found on the Internet were having the same such awful side effects I was.
So the bottom line here is this from the two scenarios offered above:
The same way the little rural town noted above has to pay 7 cents a gallon more than the big city folks do, just because of where they live and their ability to pay, so too, Americans have had to carry the brunt of the load of drug manufacturing for the world because of their proximity to us and our ability to pay.
It is not fair. It is not right. It is unethical, if not illegal, as it is tantamount to price fixing and price gouging.
For those countries with socialized medicine dictating to our American drug companies how much they are willing to pay for their drugs is like the tail wagging the dog!
For the Democrat politicians, Big Pharma drug companies, and their stockholders to allow Americans to be fleeced like we have been is beyond deplorable!
The Democrats better damned well get on board with President Trump on this point of contention if they have any remaining inkling of what is good for them in their future at all.
© 2025 by Mark S. Schwendau
