WASHINGTON — Last week, it was a left-wing political group taking Pfizer to task for hiking prices on dozens of drugs. On Monday, it was the president, who accused the company of arbitrarily hiking prices and taking advantage of Americans struggling to afford prescription medicines.
“Pfizer & others should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason,” President Trump tweeted. “They are merely taking advantage of the poor & others unable to defend themselves, while at the same time giving bargain basement prices to other countries in Europe & elsewhere. We will respond!”
Trump had promised “massive, voluntary drops” in drug prices in late May, only to watch one of the largest U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers follow through with midyear price adjustments, many of which were announced in recent weeks. Pfizer recently raised list prices for 41 drugs — the vast majority by 9 percent or more — and lowered prices for five.
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Nothing POTUS can do when the legislators are in pharmaceuticals back pocket.
Kudos to Pfizer for being the first calling the bluff on Trump. If they will survive his twitter storm in the next few days, there will be an avalanche of “huge” drug price increases from everyone else. After all, US customers like to be presidentially “raped”