All 50 States Sign On to Trump's Medicaid Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing Plan
Every US state, along with DC and Puerto Rico, has joined the administration's most-favored-nation pricing model for Medicaid, with projected savings of $64 billion over ten years.
President Donald Trump is set to announce on Friday that all 50 states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have agreed to take part in his most-favored-nation drug pricing scheme for Medicaid, the health programme for low-income Americans, according to a White House official.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates the push could save state governments $27.6 billion and the federal government $36.6 billion over the next decade — a combined total of more than $64 billion.
The United States pays more for prescription drugs than any other country, often nearly three times as much as other developed nations. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to narrow that gap.
Under the programme, known as the GENEROUS model, drugmakers have agreed to offer lower prices to Medicaid for many of their medicines, with rates intended to be comparable to those paid in other developed countries — the so-called most-favored-nation approach. Since last year, the administration has struck deals with more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies, including most of the world's largest, such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. A fresh round of agreements with international drugmakers and some smaller biotech firms was announced last month.
Medicaid, funded jointly by states and the federal government, already receives steep discounts from manufacturers under existing law, and most people covered by the programme pay little out of pocket for prescriptions.
The largest savings from the MFN deals so far have come from weight-loss drugs. Novo and Lilly agreed to price cuts in exchange for their medicines being made more widely available through the Medicare programme.
Beyond weight-loss treatments, however, critics have questioned how much price relief Americans are actually receiving from the agreements. Steve Ubl, chief executive of the industry lobby group PhRMA, criticised the policies as "importing foreign prices from socialist countries," warning they would mean fewer treatments and cures and would jeopardise the hundreds of billions its member companies plan to invest in America.
The White House has held several high-profile events with pharmaceutical executives this year to promote its healthcare cost efforts, part of a broader push to highlight affordability ahead of this year's midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress.