President Donald Trump said he will set a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in a sweeping executive order that he is set to sign on Monday, the Associated Press reports.
The order calls on the health department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to broker new price tags for drugs, according to a White House official who briefed the press on the executive order ahead of its signing. If a deal is not reached, a new rule will kick in that will tie the price of what the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries.
The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on prescription drugs, injectables, transfusions and other medications every year through Medicare, which covers nearly 70 million older Americans.
Trump’s so-called “most favored nation” approach to Medicare drug pricing has been controversial since he first tried to implement it during his first term.
