The Trump administration is planning to introduce policies over the next several weeks that aim to lower the price of prescription drugs by allowing certain ones to be imported internationally, per a Wednesday report from The Washington Post .
According to the report, the president’s advisers are in a pickle trying to develop a health care platform that the president can promote on the campaign trail for his re-election. Health care has been a large part of the Democratic candidates’ platform in the race to oust the sitting president.
The potential platform would include policies that allow certain cheaper drugs to be imported from Canada and forbid Medicare from paying a higher rate for medication than any other country, per The Washington Post.
According to The Washington Post report, the president is already facing pushback from Republicans and the pharmaceutical industry on some proposals, and others have wondered whether the Trump administration will have the authority to make these actions without congressional support.
On last night’s first CNN debate, the candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination sparred over varying ideas for how to reform the U.S. health care system. More progressive candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts advocated “Medicare for All” policies, which would create a national single-payer system for health care. More moderate Democrats, like former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, were not fans of the Medicare for All policy.
In a heated exchange between Delaney and Warren, the Massachusetts senator quipped that she didn’t understand why candidates would enter the race for president if they didn’t support pushing new ideas.
“I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. I don’t get it,” Warren said.
How Jake Tapper and CNN totally botched tonight’s health care #DemDebate https://t.co/rkNscO9NnQ pic.twitter.com/J83OWMRok7
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 31, 2019
In 2016, “repeal and replace” was a rallying cry for Republicans running for election who wanted to ditch President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which the 44th president signed into law in 2010. But GOP politicians generally ditched those plans – at least temporarily – in 2017 after repeated attempts to do so failed, per NBC News .
Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, who was against Medicare for All, noted that the progressive candidates’ rhetoric mirrored that of Republicans following the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
As The New York Times noted, the exchange about heath care lasted about 30 minutes and included input from nearly all 10 candidates on stage, including South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and author Marianne Williamson.
“It used to be Republicans that wanted to repeal and replace,” Bullock said during the Tuesday night debate. “Now many Democrats do as well.”
Heath care will most certainly come up again at CNN’s second debate on Wednesday. The second of the two debates will feature current front-runner former Vice President Joe Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, to name a few of the 10 candidates that will square off at 8 p.m. on CNN.
