Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused his boss, President Donald Trump, of giving him anxiety following countless late night phone calls.
During a Tuesday Oval Office press conference Kennedy joked that Trump “harangued” and “harassed” him with midnight phone calls trying to get a deal done with Pfizer to establish a new website to allow Americans to purchase discounted prescription drugs.
“I was getting calls at 11:30, 12:00 at night,” Kennedy said.
He said that Trump would call him to ask him, ”‘Hello, are you asleep? You got to get MFN done.’”
“MFN” refers to the idea that Pfizer will sell drugs to Americans at “Most Favored Nation” pricing, the same price it uses in other developed nations with government-subsidized healthcare.
Kennedy said he told Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, that he couldn’t take calls from the president any longer.
“My wife has a lot of reasons to say to me about different things that happen in my life, ‘doesn’t that give you anxiety?’ and I say ‘I don’t get anxiety.’ This gave me anxiety so thank you President Trump,” he said.
Kennedy went on to praise Trump’s relentlessness in pursuing the Pfizer deal.
The statement came about a half hour before Kennedy sneezed while Trump was speaking, prompting the president to joke that hopefully he didn’t just catch COVID from the noted anti-vaxxer.
Tuesday’s press conference was to announce the deal the Trump administration struck with pharmaceutical company Pfizer to create a government-sponsored website called TrumpRx.
Pfizer said the drug prices will be up to 50 percent lower than what they are now (contrary to Trump’s mathematically impossible claims that drug prices will go down “1,400 percent”), though the White House says some drugs could see even greater discounts.
In exchange for this deal, Pfizer will be exempt from Trump’s tariffs for three years.
Despite the pomp and circumstance surrounding TrumpRx, experts are skeptical that it will benefit most Americans.
An anonymous White House official told reporters that the drugs would only be available to people not using their health care to pay for the medications. As a result, Americans with healthcare and Americans on Medicaid would likely not see any significant benefit from TrumpRx, as they’re likely to still get lower drug prices by purchasing at their local pharmacy.
Furthermore, because many drug prices are already so high, slashing their price could still not be enough to make them affordable to Americans without healthcare.
For example, the White House promises that under TrumpRx, a vial of Eucrisa, a topical ointment for atopic dermatitis, will be available at an 80 percent discount. Though certainly helpful, that still works out to $189 per tube, because the drug retails at $947 for those without insurance, according to GoodRx.
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