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Should the government be involved in setting prices for consumers? Fox News Digital asked people from Houston, Texas to Detroit, Michigan to weigh in after President Donald Trump ordered pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs this week.
In an executive order signed on Monday, Trump instructed drug companies to reduce prices of prescription drugs to be on par with the lowest prices in other developed countries, or face consequences.
“The principle is simple – whatever the lowest price paid for a drug in other developed countries, that is the price that Americans will pay,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “Some prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately by 50 to 80 to 90%.”
People across the nation who spoke to Fox News Digital reacted positively to Trump’s plan to slash prices for consumers, but had mixed reactions to getting the government involved to achieve this goal.
“Lowered drug costs will help the elderly and folks that are challenged with certain incomes and have medical needs,” John, from Houston, said.
Krishna, from Detroit, said he personally knows people who have to buy their life-saving medication overseas because it is “a tenth of the cost that it is in the United States.”
“The drug prices in Canada, in Mexico, are way, way lower than in the U.S.,” Emmanuel from Houston agreed.
“Our healthcare, we say it’s the best in the world, correct? But the medicines, people cannot afford it,” he added.
Trump said the order will save Americans money by stopping the U.S. from “subsidizing” the healthcare of foreign countries.
“We’re subsidizing others’ healthcare, the countries where they paid a small fraction of what for the same drug that what we pay many, many times more for and will no longer tolerate profiteering and price-gouging from Big Pharma,” Trump said at the White House on Monday.
“Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies make more than two thirds of their profits in America. So think of that with 4% of the population, the pharmaceutical companies make most of their money. Most of their profits from America. That’s not a good thing,” Trump continued.
Those who spoke to Fox News Digital were supportive of Trump’s plan to take on Big Pharma, while others were leery of the federal government regulating prices for consumers.
“I think when the government gets too involved into markets, I think they tend to make things worse than they actually are,” Alec from Detroit said. “I think usually when the markets themselves work things out, it tends to be better. Obviously that’s not always the case with every market, such as the medical industry. So I think in some cases they should get involved minimally. Some cases they shouldn’t.”
“I just think less government is better than a lot of government,” said James from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Others were fine with it as long as the government was minimally involved.
“Not too much, maybe some basic controls just so things don’t get out of whack,” said Karisa, also from Knoxville.
“Minimal kind of control, because I do believe we need some kind of freedom to be able to sell what we need,” Aiden from Detroit said.
Others said the government should step in to stop companies from taking advantage of consumers.
“I suppose, yeah, because you don’t want corporations gouging the public,” Wyatt from Detroit said. “So if they’re going to jack up the prices, then the government should get involved and set a fair price for things.”
“The government ought to be involved in everything. They ought to get up off its hiney and do something about everything,” Olanwonzer from Houston responded.
“The freer the market is, the more it hurts individuals and individual consumers in America,” Krishna said. “I think that the number one goal of a company is to make as much money and so it doesn’t really matter how much money, how much wealth they can extract from the general American. And so regulating that is obviously the best thing for both companies and also the consumers involved.”
Trump’s executive order says if drug manufacturers don’t comply with offering Americans comparable pricing to those in other countries, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will “propose rules that impose most-favored-nation pricing; and take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anticompetitive practices.”
Fox News’ Diana Stancy and Greg Norman contributed to this report.
The post Trump’s order to bring down drug prices has the public split. Here’s what they’re saying appeared first on Fox News.
