8/24/2020

DRUGS/EXECUTIVE ORDERS: “President Trump has made his executive order tying prescription drug prices in the United States to the prices paid in Europe and other developed nations — and the ensuing war that has broken out with the pharmaceutical industry — a centerpiece of his campaign for re-election.

The problem: No such executive order has been released…

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the missing order.

While the president has implied that his ‘favored nations’ order would affect all pharmaceuticals, in reality it would affect only a small fraction of drugs: those, like chemotherapy infusions, that are administered in a doctor’s office. Even to do that, an order alone would not be enough to change policy; that would require notice-and-comment rule-making that could take months or longer.”

-Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Margot Sanger-Katz, “Trump Keeps Promoting a Drug Order That No One Has Seen,” nytimes.com, Aug. 24, 2020