Sally Pipes: "Most-Favored-Nation Pricing Would Import Europe's Drug Rationing"
Why would Congress want to copy the policies of countries that cannot or will not furnish their citizens with the most cutting-edge therapies?
The following is an excerpt from an article by Sally Pipes, Founder & Chair of the Benjamin Rush Institute, published in the Newsmax. Click here to read the full article in your browser.
President Trump’s State of the Union address featured several promising healthcare ideas.
Expanding access to patient-owned health savings accounts and routing federal subsidies through them, rather than through insurance companies, would unleash competition by empowering consumers to spend their healthcare dollars as they see fit. So would stronger price transparency requirements.
But one proposal the president continues to champion would move American healthcare in the opposite direction. And that’s his push for “most-favored-nation” drug pricing.
The policy would require pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell medicines in the United States at prices no higher than those charged in certain other developed countries.
The president has encouraged companies to align their U.S. prices more closely with those in foreign countries — and is urging Congress to codify the approach into law.
The political appeal is obvious. U.S. drug prices are roughly 2.8 times higher than those in 33 peer countries analyzed by RAND.
Why should Americans pay more?
Lower foreign prices are not the result of superior bargaining.
They are the product of government price controls.
Click here to read the full article in your browser.