President Donald Trump reaffirmed his pledge to lower prescription drug prices at a March 19 speech in Manchester, N.H., and said his administration would introduce new steps to address this issue next month, according to Reuters.
While President Trump's speech in Manchester highlighted the White House's efforts to solve the ongoing opioid epidemic, he shared plans to hold another press conference in about a month to announce the administration's drug price proposals.
"If you compare our drug prices to other countries in the world, in some cases it's many times higher for the exact same pill or whatever it is, in the exact same package made in the exact same plant," President Trump said during the speech. "We're going to change that."
HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a former drug executive, joined President Trump at the New Hampshire speech. Mr. Azar said the proposals will address "how we decrease the price of drugs and how we bring discounts that the middlemen right now are getting … to our patients," according to Reuters.
President Trump's 2019 budget proposal included numerous drug price initiatives, such as establishing caps for out-of-pocket prescription costs under Medicare and allowing state Medicaid programs to exclude some drugs from coverage to achieve bigger discounts.