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The Trump administration faces a lengthy battle to make its plan to lower Medicare drug costs a reality, with resistance coming from its own party, Democrats and large segments of the health care industry. Conservatives and the drug industry say it’s tantamount to government price controls and socialized medicine. Democrats are beating up the president for not going far enough and doctors are worried their patients could lose access to critical medicines. (Karlin-Smith, 10/26)

The Trump administration’s drug-pricing plan puts the U.S. on a path toward policies like those in Europe, where governments use tight cost controls. Under the new proposal unveiled at an event at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, President Donald Trump and health secretary Alex Azar said that the administration would create a reference price for high-cost medicines paid for by Medicare, based on comparable prices from other countries. (Lauerman and Edney, 10/26)

Kaiser Health News: Trump Adds A Global Pricing Plan To Wide Attack On Drug Prices, But Doubts Persist

President Donald Trump’s new pledge to crack down on “the global freeloading” in prescription drugs had a sense of déjà vu. Five months ago, Trump unveiled a blueprint to address prohibitive drug prices, and his administration has been feverishly rolling out ideas ranging from posting drug prices on television ads to changing the rebates that flow between drugmakers and industry middlemen. Last week, Trump proposed having Medicare base what it pays for some expensive drugs on the average prices in other industrialized countries, such as France and Germany, where prices are much lower. (Tribble, 10/26)

President Trump is trying to do what President Obama failed to accomplish: stand up to the pharmaceutical industry and doctors to change the way that the government pays for drugs. In a sweeping proposal Thursday that lacked critical details, his Department of Health and Human Services detailed a plan to change the way that Medicare pays for doctor-administered drugs in the Part B program, with one goal of removing the current incentive for doctors to prescribe high-cost drugs. The end goal: to bring down costs for the government and ultimately, for patients. (Swetlitz, 10/26)

Meanwhile, physician and patient advocacy groups, which helped kill a somewhat similar Obama administration proposal two years ago, were guarded in their reactions pending release of further details about President Donald Trump's plan. “Pharma is one of the smartest, most sophisticated, wealthiest industries represented in Washington,” said Lawrence Jacobs, a health policy and politics professor at the University of Minnesota. “Does the White House really want to make this a fight they give blood on?” (Meyer, 10/27)

President Trump is proposing a major shift in how the government pays for high-cost drugs for seniors, saying it could lower prices as much as 30 percent. The timing — two weeks before an election where health care remains a prominent issue — may be political. (Bradford, 10/26)

President Trump’s newly unveiled test plan to lower Medicare Part B drug costs may have limited resonance in the days before the midterm elections — and could face a difficult, if not impossible, road over the longer-term as well, given resistance from the pharmaceutical industry and doctors as well as some conservatives worried that the plan runs counter to their free-market principles and some Democrats who say the plan doesn’t go far enough. (Rosenberg, 10/26)