When Donald Trump told the world that “we’re going to have some of the big drug companies, in two weeks, they’re going to announce because of what we did, they’re going to announce voluntary massive drops in prices," most of us said “What the fuck are you trying to say, man?” After a few minutes we realized that Trump was promising that by saying it out loud, the big pharmaceutical companies would do what they have never done before—lower drug prices. That led to the second thing most sentient beings said to themselves: “Bullshit.”
Well, two weeks have come and gone and lo and behold, Donald Trump is still a con man and his administration is still filled with scumbags. Scumbags like Human Health and Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, who was in front of a Senate Committee to explain how up is down and black is white. Sen. Elizabeth Warren decided to call out not only Trump’s bullshit but the entire administration’s lack of even the most cursory of efforts to do anything positive about soaring drug prices.
Warren: So let's start with the president's promise. May 30, the president said that in reaction to the release of the drug pricing blueprint, drug companies would be “announcing voluntary massive drops in prices within two weeks.” That was two weeks ago tomorrow. Now, the same day that the president made those statements, Senator Smith and I sent letters to the top ten drug manufacturers to see how many have lowered prices—in response to the blueprint—and all ten of them have now responded. Zero out of ten said that they had lowered any prices. Zero out of ten gave any indication that they plan to do so. And in fact, one out of ten says that prices are going to go up later this year. So maybe you can clear this up for us. Which drug companies will be voluntarily lowering the price massively and how much will this save as a result?
Azar: So there are actually several drug companies that are looking at substantial and material decreases of drug prices in competitive classes and competing with each other and frankly at this point --
Warren: You said they are looking at it?
Azar realizes that his “we’re looking into it” bullshit doesn’t follow suit with Trump’s “we did it,” rhetoric—and he also knows that they haven’t done anything—so he quickly tries to upgrade the “we will be working on it,” to “we are totally working on it.”
Azar: They are working with the managers and this is the system.
Warren: In other words the promise that we would see the massive decreases hasn’t happened and you don’t actually have anyone lined up that will decrease drug prices.
Azar tries to say explain that the drug companies need reassurances that they aren’t going to be the only ones decreasing their drug prices. No one wants to be eaten by the rest of the sharks—especially when you have a country being ruled by arguably the largest corrupt political party in centuries. This turns into Sen. Warren asking whether or not Azar can guarantee that if the Trump administration is successful in chipping away and privatizing some of Medicare, that Medicare beneficiaries won’t end up paying higher drug prices as a result. He cannot because he’s full of shit—as is the Trump administration, as are the people pulling these conmen’s strings.
You can watch the action below.