Americans pay the highest prices in the world for brand-name prescription drugs. Patients in other wealthy countries, meanwhile, pay far less for the exact same treatments. Their government-run health systems bully drug companies into offering huge discounts, and then the United States is left subsidizing drug costs for the rest of the world.
The Trump administration is working to end this extortion.
By pushing other wealthy allies to reform their drug-pricing practices, the White House is working to more evenly share the burden of funding the research and development that benefits the entire world.
RECLAIMING AFFORDABILITY: WANT AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE? PUT CONSUMERS IN CONTROL
This rebalancing is long overdue. And it’ll greatly benefit American patients and workers, so long as the administration holds firm in the face of inevitable resistance from trading partners and left-wing ideologues.
In December, the Trump administration notched its first major victory in this effort to restore fairness. It compelled the United Kingdom to double its spending on medicines as a share of GDP, largely by reducing the revenue it claws back from drug companies and by raising the threshold it uses to decide whether a new drug is worth the cost.
This deal, and the other similar ones that top administration officials have promised will come soon, will do more than ease pressure on American patients today. It’ll help spur breakthroughs tomorrow. More balanced global pricing means that American firms will have more sales opportunities abroad. And the promise of increased revenues will incentivize companies to take the enormous risks required to develop new treatments.
To see what’s at stake, consider immunotherapies. For decades, chemotherapy was the default cancer treatment. It works by attacking not just tumors, but healthy cells as well, leading to harsh side effects and limited long-term success against the most advanced stages of the disease.
Immunotherapies changed the game. Instead of broadly attacking the body, they help the immune system distinguish between healthy cells and cancerous ones — and target only the tumors.
Today, millions of patients have taken immunotherapies to treat a wide variety of cancers. Many people who were previously told they’d be dead within months are still alive well over a decade later.
Prior to the discovery of immunotherapies, the median patient diagnosed with advanced melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, who received the standard chemotherapy died in just nine months. By contrast, over one-third of advanced melanoma patients who receive an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda survive at least a decade.
Virtually everyone, here in America and around the world, claims to want more of these medical miracles. But too many foreign countries aren’t willing to pull their weight when it comes to paying for them.
When those countries cap prices, demand steep discounts, or outright refuse to cover certain medicines, it forces American patients and taxpayers to sustain the economics of drug development.
Breakthrough drugs don’t appear out of the ether. They’re the product of years, or even decades, of financially risky, expensive research. Nine out of 10 drugs that enter clinical trials never make it to patients. The few that succeed must generate sufficient returns to cover the cost of all those failed research projects, fund the next wave of innovation, and reward investors for taking those huge risks.
HOW CONGRESS CAN DELIVER HEALTHCARE AFFORDABILITY AND MITIGATE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT DISASTER
The administration’s recent efforts are a step in the right direction. The U.S. government is finally upending a status quo that has quietly shifted costs onto its own citizens for decades.
Immunotherapies show what scientists can achieve when companies have the incentives to take risks and invest in research. If we want more breakthroughs like these, we need a system where America leads in developing new treatments and where other countries pay fair prices for the fruits of that research.
Drew Johnson is a government watchdog and health policy analyst who was the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district in 2024.