• Biden Stops Trump Order To Slash Price Of Insulin, EpiPen

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 22 21:05:12 2021
    XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.miserable-failure
    XPost: alt.politics.usa

    President Joe Biden’s United States Department of Health and Human
    Services (HHS) on Thursday stopped executive orders from his
    predecessor designed to significantly lower prescription drug prices
    for Americans, including insulin and epinephrine.

    The new administration will apparently re-evaluate the executive action
    from President Donald Trump toward the end of March. It remains unclear
    if it will be reinstated.

    “The HHS Thursday froze the former Trump administration’s December drug
    policy that requires community health centers to pass on all their
    insulin and epinephrine discount savings to patients,” Bloomberg Law
    reported Thursday. “Centers that don’t pass on the savings wouldn’t
    qualify for federal grants.”

    “This freeze is part of the Biden administration’s large-scale effort
    announced this week that will scrutinize the Trump administration’s
    health policies,” the report noted. “If the previous administration’s
    policies raise ‘fact, law, or policy’ concerns, the Biden HHS will
    delay them and consult with the Office of Management and Budget about
    other actions.”

    A report for Bloomberg Government said the Biden administration is on a “different page” about curbing drug prices than the Trump
    administration, noting of the Biden team awaiting “at least a dozen
    lawsuits … over Trump-era moves to lower drug prices”:

    Biden enters the presidency with at least a dozen lawsuits
    waiting over Trump-era moves to lower drug prices, an issue
    the new administration will likely tackle in its own way.
    The Department of Health and Human Services under Biden
    inherits challenges to rules that tie drug reimbursement to
    cheaper foreign drug prices and allow medication imports from
    Canada. It also faces complaints over Trump’s push for
    drugmakers to ship discounted drugs bought by low-income
    health centers to commercial contract pharmacies.

    https://twitter.com/MaryVought/status/1352696236021862401

    Trump signed four executive orders in July that directed the secretary
    of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “[e]nd a shadowy system of
    kickbacks by middlemen that lurks behind the high out-of-pocket costs
    many Americans face at the pharmacy counter,” the department announced
    at the time, noting that they would provide Americans more options on purchasing the drugs.

    During the signing ceremony, Trump said the high price of insulin and
    EpiPens have cut off low-income people in “desperate” need of the
    treatments.

    “The four orders I’m signing today will be on the prescription drug
    market in terms of pricing and everything else to make these
    medications affordable and accessible for all Americans,” said Trump, surrounded by health care professionals. “The first order will require
    federal community health centers to pass the giant discounts they
    received from drug companies on insulin and EpiPens directly to their
    patients. You know insulin became so expensive people weren’t able to
    use it. They desperately needed it.”

    “We have it to a level that you’re not going to believe,” he continued. “EpiPens — likewise you have been hearing horrible stories about
    EpiPens over the last six or seven years, horrible, horrible, horrible increases for where they went to almost nothing to massive amounts of
    money. We’re changing that right now.”

    “Under this order,” Trump added, “the price of insulin for affected
    patients will come down to just pennies a day, pennies a day from
    numbers that you weren’t even able to think about. It’s a massive cost savings.”

    Trump said providers “should not be receiving discounts for themselves
    while charging their poorest patients massive full prices.”

    Along with the order ending the “shadowy system of kickbacks by
    middlemen,” another order would allow states, wholesalers, and
    pharmacies to offer “safe and legal importation of prescription drugs
    from Canada and other countries where the price for the identical drug
    is incredibly lower,” Trump underscored.

    --
    Trump won.

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