President Trump reneged on his promise, one in line with a longstanding Democratic pledge, to cut the costs of prescription medication by allowing Medicare to negotiate bulk discounts.

Matthew Yglesias reports for Vox this morning that “after a meeting with pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives, he abandoned that pledge, referring to an idea he supported as recently as three weeks ago as a form of ‘price fixing’ that would hurt ‘smaller, younger companies.'”

“Instead of getting tough,” writes Yglesias, “Trump’s new plan is that he’s ‘going to be lowering taxes’ and ‘getting rid of regulations,'” the traditional GOP party line.

Countries with national health care systems have a lot of power to negotiate drug prices, as the government is the sole or primary customer and therefore in a position to make demands. The US does not have nationalized health care, but the large number of people covered under Medicare and Medicaid give the federal government similar negotiating power.

That negotiating power was hamstrung in 2003, however, when the GOP-led Congress passed a law prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services from wielding it.

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump’s promise to leverage the federal government’s negotiating power would still not have been sufficient:

“In order to generate substantial savings, any proposal would need to go beyond simply giving the HHS Secretary negotiating authority; either by also giving HHS the authority to discontinue coverage of drugs (which could violate Trump’s promise to not change Medicare benefits) or by legally requiring – rather than negotiating – lower prices.”

“You folks have done a tremendous job, but we have to get prices down,” Trump said at this morning’s meeting, according to a pooled press report of the meeting reported by the Indianapolis Star 

Companies represented at the meeting included Eli Lilly, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Celgene, Amgen, and Novartis.

As Reuters reported, “Trump spooked investors in the pharmaceuticals and biotech sectors by saying on Jan. 11, before his inauguration, that drug companies were ‘getting away with murder’ on what they charged the government for medicine and that he would do something about it.

After the meeting, Eli Lilly stock rose $1.12 to $75.81.

Credit:http://usuncut.com/news/meeting-big-pharma-trump-drops-promise-lower-drug-prices/