STAT+: Trump targets health care costs with executive order on drug price negotiations, hospital payments
Trump's order is designed to reduce health care costs for older adults and people with disabilities, but the path to implementation is far from assured.
President Trump unveiled a wide-ranging executive order on Tuesday that aims to lower drug prices, boost transparency into fees charged by middlemen, and limit Medicare payments for outpatient services provided by hospitals. Much of the order would require further rulemaking or other actions to have any effect.
Medicare drug price negotiation
The administration announced several initiatives intended to reduce health care costs for older adults and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare. Some of them build off of one of former President Biden’s signature achievements, the Medicare drug price negotiation program.
The executive order outlines a plan to expand Medicare drug price negotiation. Created under the Inflation Reduction Act, a 2022 law that combined health care reform with energy initiatives, the program was slow to take off, announcing the first slate of drugs whose prices would be negotiated just before former president Biden left office in January. Trump’s order called the program’s goal “commendable,” but said administrative complexity has hampered its ability to achieve significant savings.
