Pfizer to Postpone Some Drug Price Increases, After Criticism From Trump

There will be no "blueprint" from the administration by the end of the year. HHS will still be trying to figure out how to reunite the stolen children and to further hobble the ACA. Just like infrastructure week--a joke. Prices will go up January 1. Donald will keep his mouth shut then.

Waiting for the spotlight, shining on their egregiously abusive practices to wane, so they can get richer, and kill people, in the dark. Kind of the way the Republican Party operates.

"Mr. Read said Pfizer was postponing its price increases 'to give the president an opportunity to work on his blueprint' and to 'provide more access for patients.'" In other words, Pfizer is going to use the president's inherently destructive nature as cover to return to business as usual once Trump inevitably blows up whatever deal might be struck. Is that too "negative"? So far Trump has managed to make one true deal thus far... a billionaire tax cut for which I and other generations after him will pay. Beyond that, Trump has been about demolition. The ACA has been eviscerated, but where is our "beautiful" replacement? Trump says "DACA" is dead, but where was the master negotiator with his "bill of love"? Trump is very good at separating children, but reuniting them? Not so much. Trump pulled us out of the Iran Nuclear Deal easily enough... but not much talk on his progress negotiating new terms. Have Trump's negotiating skills yielded a deal on that trillion-dollar infrastructure plan he promised? He naturally supports Brexit, but I haven't heard him speak in specifics about what follows. His eyes twinkle at the thought of Merkel's collapse, without thought as to the extremists waiting to fill the void. It's always the same with him. NAFTA, TPP, the G7, the U.N., NATO... Trump is very eager to demolish things, but (despite his real estate background), he hasn't done much building as president. Is this "blueprint" going to be the exception?

The President claims to be looking out for the "poor" and other, while his administration and a Republican Congress does every thing it can to gut the Affordable Care Act, especially Medicaid expansion.

While there's no doubt the drug companies gauge consumers, hostile tweets from a bullying President don't really address the problem. The issue here is policy, and these nasty tweets don't speak to policy. Instead, by giving in, Pfizer has only reinforced Trump's belief that he now has the personal power to go after whomever he likes and then bend them to his will. He's not tweeting to make sure that poor women have access to affordable birth control. He's not tweeting about the increases in health insurance premiums or reinstatement of pre-existing conditions that will drive millions of Americans out of the medical system or into poverty. Nope. He's making sure he can still get his designer label Viagra. Another example of how the ends do not justify the means.

Trump has a good idea here, but what is to stop the pharmaceutical companies from keeping congress in their pockets?

Trump to Pfizer executive: "Wait until November 7th to raise prices and I will come up with some other distractions."

Be interesting to see what these drugs cost in other countries. Over all, drugs cost about 6X more here then in Europe or canada. Why is that?

So Trump has his headline to declare victory and after the passage of time, Pfizer will still raise drug prices.

Again, Trump is getting played. Instead of lowering drug prices, they agree to defer future price increase. What a scam.

What would happen if drug companies had to take into account any state, city or federal subsidies they receive when building their manufacturing or office structures. Or perhaps they had to value the NIH research that went into the development of their product. Both subsidies and NIH research are funded by taxpayers and companies ignore these contributions.

True healthcare reform is beyond Trump and his Republican allies, so all he can do is make noise. His favorite personal ploy to achieve lower costs--not paying employees, contractors, and vendors--probably wouldn't work for most of us when we go to the pharmacy.

How do you deal with a bully? Either stand up to him or duck and parry until the bully goes away. Pfizer did the latter which was probably smart. When Trumpism moves into history, they can go back to their preferred practices which I have little doubt they will.

Great news! Let's see if he can get NATO countries to pay what they have pledged to pay. Trump seems to be succeeding where other Presidents have failed.

He is a master of distraction. Beating up a greedy corporation to get headlines and attention is not equivalent to a decent approach to having medical care accessible to all, and keeping drug costs in line with the rest of the world. But it sure grabs attention and that's all he cares about.

Trump and low drug costs. Who is he kidding he and the GOP get kickbacks from the drug companies to keep the prices high. Look at our gas and oil. The GOP are running Washington and they have raised Gas so high it is a hardship on millions of people. Ca. prices 3.70 a gallon and NY state over 3.00. When you put the rich in charge the rich get richer and the poor poorer.

This grandstanding against drug companies to shield patients from rising costs is vintage Trump, who outshines P. T. Barnum as an unscrupulous huckster playing his audience for suckers. Aside from his bluster during his campaign and now in his anything-goes rallies, he has done nothing during his time in office to reign in the interests of business or bolster the interests of the general public. It is no longer possible to believe his tweets, the tidbits he tosses to the press on his way to somewhere else, or his reading of speeches crafted by his conservative watchdogs. What we can believe is that this president will continue to bamboozle the public while gleefully following the script set by his conservative sponsors, the only constituency he cares about.

Transparent ploy by dear leader to make it seem like he's helping his supporters while his EPA is doing all it can to boost the toxins in the environment that make us need these dreadful drugs in the first place.

"Mr. Read said Pfizer was postponing its price increases “to give the president an opportunity to work on his blueprint”" Please. If DJT has a blueprint for anything other than his next Twitter outburst, I have yet to see it.

So what. The price increases are paltry compared to what the company's make in profit. It's astounding how much they advertise drugs during prime time, drugs that no one except the rich can afford. Congress blocked a measure to allow medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. This would have been a step for meaningful change in the high cost of drugs. They are now de-funding outreach efforts for the ACA. The Trumpsters don't understand policy and will continue to vote against their best interest because of the well calculated propaganda machine spewed out by Fox.

Big Pharma is thriving by gouging Medicare Part D patients regularly. HHS & Medicare have NO CONTROL over their fees. The doughnut hole is entered rapidly now because of excessive price increases. It will not end until HHS says we won’t do business with these companies anymore. This is a national disgrace. These companies just don’t care! They make huge profits through government stupidity while all seniors suffer.

A sop to Trump chumps before the mid-terms. The delayed price increases will happen after the vote.

As a physician who is not a Trump fan, I can honestly say that he will have succeeded where all other politicians have dared not even tread. The reality is that “non-patented” drugs in particular should be no more expensive in the US than in Europe or Canada. It is a scam.

Not enough. Drug prices need to be lowered.

This concession by Pfizer is similar to a thief that “only takes half the money in your wallet”.

Holders of Pfizer stock will not appreciate Mr. Read's brazen cowardice in rolling back the price hikes. I predict he will soon find a way to restore them.

This isn't the first time that Trump has, after a phone conversation with a Big Pharma CEO, announced that drug prices were coming down. This time is no different. He either has the wrong recollection of what the phone call yielded or... this is his way of applying pressure on the Pharmaceutical company to do something that will benefit his bank account and make him look good. In an America in which there is some honesty and honor left in Congress, the president's party would force him to disclose his stock portfolio and taxes in full. But we live in a post-Citizens United world and the Republican party is the Party of Trump now. Big Pharma has been making a killing at selling Americans life-saving drugs, priced to gouge. This won't change under Trump. It'll only get worse as Trump and Seema Verma, VP Pence's long-time healthcare-killing henchman dismantle Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid. When they're done, it won't really matter what drugs are priced at because the only ones able to afford them will be the 9%. This is where we are now. --- www.rimaregas.com

Just another reason why we need a health care system that is universal access and single payor. Drug companies will not listen to patients because patients are the sources of their income. Patients have been supporting a wealth care system for the last 40 or more years. We're paying monthly premiums, deductibles, co-pays, out of network costs, etc., for the privilege of having narrow networks, constant denial of our claims, poor communication between doctors, and the threat of medical bankruptcy. And who benefits from all these high costs: the CEOs of the insurance, drug, and hospital corporations. Not us. The money we pay for drugs does not go into scientific research to the extent that we're led to believe. It goes to market research: what to name the new medication, how to package it attractively, the groups to target, etc. None of this is about competition unless you believe that raising the price makes the drugs better. In today's America you get the best health care money can buy: no wealth, no health.

In case it wasn't already obvious that drug companies engage in rampant price gouging, Pfizer arbitrarily decides to not increase drug prices because, in reality, the price has nothing to do with the basic rules of supply and demand in a competitive economy.

You can disagree with his methods (I often cringe) and he's not always on target, but he does tend to call them out. And they respond with alacrity. What the heck have all these people in DC, to whom we've been sending trillions and trillions of our dollars, been doing all these years with the power we've vested in them!?

This is what Trump does, acts like a bully to get close to meaningless concessions that he can brag about, but doesn't make any significant policy changes what would influence global prices. Pfizer will back off, slowly, and then raise prices later just to get Trump to shut up. In the meantime, since when does a president get to attack companies one at a time and what is it he's going to do to them? Install a Pfizer-only tax?