“President Trump has promised a better vision: a health care system that treats you like a person, not a number. He wants to hold providers and Big Pharma accountable to transparency and reasonable prices. We are working every day to protect American patients and deliver on the president’s vision.”

How Team Trump Is Keeping Drug Prices Down

By Secretary Alex Azar and Joe Grogan

New York Post

July 1, 2019

At some point, almost all Americans have been stuck with massive, unexpected medical bills or forced to make health decisions without real information or anyone to guide them. We have worked at the highest levels of US health care for years, yet it has happened to both of us.

It’s one reason why President Trump signed an executive order last week to help you easily find the typical price — and what you would actually owe — for major health services before you have to purchase them.

This step is part of a number of efforts underway, across the administration, to fix the problems in American health care, while preserving what works and what Americans like about the system.

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First, the president has been clear: Americans need affordable health care. Patients deserve a backstop against high medical costs, and the government takeover of individual insurance over the past decade has failed to deliver that peace of mind.

The Trump administration has opened new insurance options for American small employers and workers both inside and outside of the individual insurance market, and we continue to protect Americans with preexisting conditions.

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The cost of prescription drugs also must keep coming down. The Trump administration has set records for approvals of low-cost generic drugs, saving patients $26 billion in just the first year and a half of the president’s term.

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Second, American patients deserve to be in control, not left at the mercy of a shadowy system. That is the goal of the president’s new executive order: to bring you the pricing information you need to find the right options for you.

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Third, we are going to deliver the quality patients deserve. High-quality care means not just cutting-edge treatments but also care that keeps you healthy, rather than only helping when you’re sick.

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Putting you in control and providing you with real certainty is a stark contrast to recent proposals for a government takeover of our entire health care system. That leap would leave behind what so many Americans know and like about our system.

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