DRUGS/HHS/PHARMA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration is backing a set of actions aimed at lowering prescription-drug costs, including a cap on the dollar amount that American seniors pay each year for expensive prescription drugs. The administration wasn’t specific about the dollar amount for the drug cap, and some of the proposals would require congressional action.
Alex Azar, the newly confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services, said the main objectives of the administration’s initiatives were to ‘reduce out-of-pocket expenses for seniors’ and to ‘increase the ability of the government to get a good deal’ in purchasing prescription drugs… Mr. Azar conducted a press briefing along with Mick Mulvaney, the White House’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, who described lower drug prices as ‘a top, top priority for the president.’
The two senior Trump administration officials laid out a series of proposals that could lead to lower prescription-drug prices, but many of them were lacking in details. Some of the ideas are likely to be fleshed out further on Monday, when the administration is scheduled to release a budget proposal.
The plans included making generic drugs available free for senior citizens in the Medicare program and increasing the ability of some state Medicaid programs to use their drug formularies—lists of approved drugs—to drive down the cost of prescription drugs in the state-federal program. That would be a five-state pilot program.”
-Thomas M. Burton, “Trump Moves to Cut Costs for Prescription Drugs,” The Wall Street Journal online, Feb. 9, 2018 09:43am