Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have a rare point of agreement in their otherwise bitter and divisive contest: It’s up to the government to cut high U.S. drug prices.
It can be Harris cast the tie-breaking Senate vote in 2022 for legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for its more than 60 million beneficiaries. Before that, she was an aggressive regulator of the drug industry as California attorney general. As president, Trump would likely retain Medicare price negotiations unless the pharmaceutical industry can come up with something more compelling that they’d put on the table, people close to him say.
In his first term, he proposed various policies aimed at reducing prescription costs but had limited success with their implementation. The drug industry could benefit, though, if Trump remains unable to advance such proposals. “His efforts were largely fragmented and faced resistance from both the industry and lawmakers,” said Sergio Jose Gutierrez, a political strategist who has primarily worked with Democrats in the U.
S. “The lack of a cohesive strategy and the limited ability to implement significant changes made his approach less effective compared to what a Harris-Walz administration could offer.” The industry is increasingly under attack by lawmakers from both parties for drug prices most Americans , according to KFF polling, so the election outcome could be pivotal to drug companies’ fortunes.
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