In an age of intense political polarization, some may assume anything that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump even marginally agree on has to be a good thing. But when it comes to the issue of prescription drug prices, this is a dangerous temptation. No amount of good will or aisle-spanning agreement can compensate for fatal flaws underlying their markedly similar approaches.
Of course there are key differences to what President Trump's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Speaker Pelosi have proposed on drug pricing, but at their core they propose to make the same fundamental change to U.S. healthcare policy. Both proposals would have the federal government use Medicare as a bludgeon to set or influence U.S. drug prices based on prices found under nationalized healthcare systems and explicit price controls overseas.
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