There are bills that Democrats are carrying that would lower the cost of prescription drugs, actually put more money in people's pockets.
All of this is just a disingenuous effort on the House, on the part of House Republicans and Donald Trump to pretend like they are looking out for people.
If they were serious about it, the policy would be placed within their reconciliation plan.
It's not.
This is just a performance effort by the President.
Thank you very much.
unidentified
It's National Police Week all this week, and in the House at noon Eastern, members will start debate on three law enforcement-related bills.
Lawmakers will also consider a measure aiming to educate the public on how to counter anti-Semitism.
And a vote is expected on tabling or killing Congressman Sri Tanadar's impeachment resolution against President Trump.
Off the floor, committees continue working on tax and spending legislation to further President Trump's agenda.
As always, live coverage of the House is here on C-SPAN.
It says that the administration is going to focus a lot of efforts across agencies, across HHS, and even across other agencies in Washington to lower drug prices.
That there's interest in maybe Medicare using its buying power to lower prices based on how much other countries pay, which is usually less than the United States, other developed nations.
And it also looks to bring pharma companies to the table with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and see if they can make a deal before some of these policy levers are enacted.
So why is it that we pay so much more for prescription drugs?
I mean, it is true.
If you were to go to Canada or you go to Europe, buy the exact same drug, it's cheaper than it is here.
Why is that?
unidentified
It's absolutely true.
And I think that depending on who you ask, you would get a lot of different answers on why that's the case.
Some countries have laws that require that the price drops.
Japan, for instance, has a law that requires that the prices drop every year.
And other countries can negotiate prices as a block and say if a pharmaceutical company doesn't meet our price, our nation will just not buy.
And that's a very strong lever.
In the United States, we have a more federated system, so different people are negotiating different prices, and that maybe lowers bargaining power, some people would say.
My administration will secure what we're calling most favored nations drug pricing.
The principle is simple.
Whatever the lowest price paid for a drug in other developed countries, that is the price that Americans will pay.
And we're using the term other developed countries because there are some countries that need some additional help, and that's fine.
I think that's very good.
Some prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately by 50 to 80 to 90 percent.
Big Pharma will either abide by this principle voluntarily or will use the power of the federal government to ensure that we are paying the same price as other countries.
The markets as a whole or for the pharmaceutical companies?
unidentified
Both, both, for pharmaceutical companies as well.
Analysts said they didn't think it was likely that this policy would really, at the end of the day, be enacted in a way that really impacted the bottom line.
If you have a question about President Trump's drug pricing executive order that was signed on Monday, you can give us a call.
Daniel Payne will be with us until 8 a.m. Eastern.
The numbers are Democrats 202748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can also text at 202-748-8003.
You mentioned the previous administration and Medicare.
Obviously, the government has a lot of control over Medicare.
That's a government program.
So how is that going?
Is that continuing?
I think that there were only like the top 10 most common drugs that were on the list.
What's going on with that?
unidentified
It's a great question.
It's something that the administration said when they announced this policy that they weren't going to say exactly what they were going to do in Medicare to accomplish this goal.
Some very smart analysis also on staff from my colleagues says there's sort of an implicit maybe you The administration is essentially saying you should come to the table and deal with us, or else the government has all these actions that they can take to bring their drug price down, to force it down.