After a meeting with big pharma executives, Trump said:
"I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars, big time."
By law, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the VA, have price caps for all of the medical services they provide, including drugs. However, Medicare can't negotiate lower drug prices because of a 2003 law proposed by Republicans, approved by Republicans and signed by George W. Bush.
Many times during his campaign, and even after the elections, Trump said he would negotiate better prices for drugs for Medicare with the pharmaceutical companies even though the law prohibited him from doing so, He would need to change the law to negotiate, something that would be very easy with the Republican majority in Congress and Democrats willing to repeal the negotiation ban.
And in fact, shortly before being sworn into office he said the pharmaceutical companies were "getting away with murder" and he said he would implement new bidding procedures, which is a way to negotiate down drug prices:
https://youtu.be/EE-ScDMHHRk
But now Trump not only is backpedaling from his campaign promise of negotiating drug prices for Medicare, he's suggesting prices will go even higher, as he intends to remove the price caps.
And higher prices for Medicare mean bigger costs for all taxpayers.
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