this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
120 points (100.0% liked)

news

24084 readers
696 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Alaskaball@hexbear.net
ZoomeristLeninist@hexbear.net
carpoftruth@hexbear.net
Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net
context@hexbear.net
Infamousblt@hexbear.net
FALGSConaut@hexbear.net
120
Trump says he'll sign executive order tomorrow which reduces drug prices in US up to 80% (www.reuters.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by dead@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World."

"Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%."

"They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!"

https://archive.is/3u94Z (reuters)

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/11/trump-drug-prices-executive-order-pharmaceuticals

https://archive.is/3zn6T (truthsocial)

all 42 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Des@hexbear.net 84 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

wouldn't it be weird if as Trump's mind turns to jelly he becomes a socdem left populist. like how certain brain damage often makes people go right he gets the opposite

or he sees how popular Sheinbaum is and starts trying to copy some of that

obviously it would be filtered through his circle of ghouls

[–] Meltyheartlove@hexbear.net 60 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

timmy-pray Please turn jdpondon into a real communist

[–] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 38 points 3 weeks ago

St. Peter is gonna be scratching his head at this one.

[–] dead@hexbear.net 54 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Trump presented MFN drug policy in his first term in 2020 as an alternative to "Medicare for All". It was meant to kill the enthusiasm for Free Healthcare amongst right wingers. It's in the same vein as "no tax on tips" rather than raising the minimum wage. It's meant to be an alternative ineffective solution, which makes it look like he's doing something good when he really isn't.

He says the same thing with tariffs. He says that tariffs are meant to return manufacturing to the US, but what is actually happening is that working class people are paying more sales taxes.

[–] Des@hexbear.net 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

oh i know it's all BS.

I do have a theory that a portion of his fair weather base (registered indepedent with confused politics, not MAGA fankids) remember his vaguely populist rhetoric from his first run and just think he's never actually changed.

like he's just some anti-immigrant bernie type but has just surrounded himself with bad people. I've talked to a few people that are legit that confused and out of touch

[–] WoodScientist@hexbear.net 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

oh i know it's all BS.

It may not actually be. Sure, the corporations helped put Trump in power. They made the same gamble countless nations' corporate sectors did when supporting fascist leaders - "yes he's extreme, but we can control him." How well did that work out for the Nazi German corporate sector? How well did that work for Russia's oligarchs under Putin? Sure, some lucky ones got really rich by maintaining favor with the regime. But the moment your businesses interests go against the interests of the leader? You get trampled under the same boot as everyone else.

The pharma companies helped put Trump in power, but they're also incredibly unpopular. If there's some way Trump can crush them, then that would greatly increase his own popularity. It may well be worth it for MAGA to stomp the pharma companies, even if it means losing their donations. It would hardly be the first time a fascist leader purged many of the people who put him in power.

[–] WoodScientist@hexbear.net 23 points 3 weeks ago

I mean...people do tend to regress as Alzheimer's sets in, no? Not regress as in regressive/progressive, but regress in terms of their own life experience and beliefs. You lose the newest memories first. And Trump was a Democrat for many years. He's always been racist and pro-tariff, but it's not impossible he had more progressive beliefs on many issues earlier in life. Whether he was only a Democrat because he lived in NYC, I can't say. But him becoming more liberal as his brain turns to mush really wouldn't be completely impossible. It really just depends on what his beliefs were earlier in life.

[–] determinism2@hexbear.net 53 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Now they'll kill him.

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 23 points 3 weeks ago

It would be so funny if fucking with the FBI doesn't get him but the first time he would tangibly make something better (I'll believe it when I see it) he gets insta-dunked by the deep state.

If real life had a narrative, then this is the moment where the A plot (presidential bullshit) meets up with the B plot ( luigi-dance ) and the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield starts monologing and reveals how there's a man behind the curtain named John Privateinsurance who comes from beyond the stars to feed off of illness.

[–] Meltyheartlove@hexbear.net 40 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Lowest price should be free and covered by bourgeois.

[–] glups@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

Bourgeois? Why not the ultra-wealthy?

[–] SerLava@hexbear.net 40 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are so many individual coups de grace that Trump could use against the Democrats, I wouldn't be surprised if he crashes his way into one of them.

As always it's more likely that nothing will actually happen here, but it's certainly possible he'll just do some shit like this to make his life incredibly easier

[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah this is probably some shit that was already law but they’re actually gonna start doing it.

[–] WoodScientist@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

He's basically claimed unlimited authority to issue whatever tariffs he wants at will, including tariffs against individual companies. If the courts uphold his claim of expansive tariff powers, he can do this with tariffs alone.

The drug companies are all big multinationals. For those located outside the US, regular import tariffs work. Just threaten to tariff the hell out of any foreign drug manufacturer that doesn't agree to the administration's price controls. Add a million percent tariff if need be.

For domestic companies, it's a little more difficult. But still, these are domestic companies with international operations. And exit tariffs are a thing. Congress can tax exports if it wants. And Trump could claim the same power. Any US-based drug company that didn't play ball with prices would face a million percent export tariff.

And this is just tariffs. Patent law could also be wielded to force companies to abide by price caps. And the generic licensing market could be used similarly. And there are so many national security laws that can be adopted. If certain emergencies are declared, the president can flat-out order companies to produce certain goods.

Oh, Ozempic is too expensive? Trump just declared obesity a threat to national defense, and he's ordered a hundred companies to produce Ozempic and similar drugs, at quantities 10x what would be needed to dose the entire population. The country is soon swimming in weight loss drugs and the price crashes through the floor. Your insurance company starts paying YOU to take them.

[–] dead@hexbear.net 39 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I'm not sure what the catch is here. I'm guessing it has to do with drug patents being owned by different companies in different countries.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 34 points 3 weeks ago

I'm sure there will be cutouts for companies that do favors or whatever. Just like everything else he's doing.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

How would this actually be enforced? Unlike other countries with socialized healthcare, the US doesn't negotiate prices with these companies directly. Perhaps there's some mechanism I don't know of, but I doubt it, we're kind of all about empowering capitalists to fuck people over.

The bigger catch is that this would almost certainly go to the supreme court and get overturned.

[–] Biddles@hexbear.net 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Medicare has to buy drugs

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

You're right, but if Trump does medicare for all and orders prices be fixed, all through one executive order, I think the bourgeois would actually kill him.

E: Also he just won't do this lol, it's Trump after all.

[–] regul@hexbear.net 18 points 3 weeks ago

Monkey's paw it's for drug wholesalers on import prices but just so their profit margins increase one billion percent when prices to end users stay the same.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 35 points 3 weeks ago

Price controls price controls price controls lets-fucking-go

[–] miz@hexbear.net 34 points 3 weeks ago

hasan-ok-dude

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 29 points 3 weeks ago

You can tell that this is either fake or misleading because he announced it ahead of time.

[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 25 points 3 weeks ago

It'll never actually happen. But if it does - Trump gets a third term if there's a legit election. The only hurdle then is solved by the GOP justices removing his liddle constitutional problem.

[–] darkcalling@hexbear.net 24 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah bullshit. At most I imagine he does something that applies only to US medicare. That is the US government in prices it pays has to get the lowest cost. People with insurance, e.g. those who aren't over 65? They still get fucked. In fact those with medicare might get fucked too if the drug companies simply decline to sell in the US and you end up with a medicare system that doesn't have a lot of vital drugs that in a few years Republicans can declare as completely failed and killing people and push for privatizing.

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

He is going to make luigi a federal judge.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

He's already Executor, so he'll only need Jury left.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago

doubt

[–] Finger@hexbear.net 19 points 3 weeks ago

no more half measures walter

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 17 points 3 weeks ago

if he manages to fleece eu out of pocket money, that would be something to behold

[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 16 points 3 weeks ago

he earned the jet

[–] Civility@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

party-blob