Biden health official ‘taking a look’ at Trump drug pricing proposal

A key Biden administration health official said Thursday that she is “taking a look” at one of former President Trump’s proposals to lower drug prices, but did not commit to pursuing the plan.

“I think we’re, you know, taking a look at those concepts,” Liz Fowler, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, said when asked about Trump’s “most favored nation” proposal to lower drug prices.

Trump had touted that initiative as a way to lower the prices Medicare paid for certain drugs to be in line with the prices paid in other wealthy countries. But the proposal, which Trump put forward at the end of his term, never went into effect after it was blocked by the courts for failing to follow proper procedural steps in its implementation. The path forward is therefore up to the Biden administration.

Fowler noted the court rulings during an interview with Health Affairs.

“I think you can expect that we’ll continue looking at this issue,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going to let our foot off the gas, but I don’t know that it’ll take that form. We can’t because it’s in court.”

The issue is unusual in that it marks an area where Trump put forward a proposal that is closer to the Democratic position than the usual Republican position.

Fowler even offered some tempered praise for the Trump administration’s approach on drug pricing.

“I thought that the previous administration was very creative in a lot of the ideas and areas that they were looking at tackling,” she said.

Fowler noted that Congress is working on potentially more sweeping drug pricing legislation, though it remains unclear what if anything can get enough votes to pass.

“Let’s see what Congress can do, because it’s a lot easier to make progress on this issue there,” she said. “But if that’s not possible, I think we stand ready to work with them and look and see how far we can get.”