Claim: Trump backs Fla. plan to import lower-cost meds from abroad.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency
text: a product where there's not even a safety problem. So it's crazy. I'm surprised you can't get them to move faster than that." Trump had promised in March 2016, to reform the pharmaceutical industry, including the removal of existing free market barriers to allow imported, dependable, safe, reliable, and cheaper drugs from overseas, bringing more options to American consumers. Following Trump's press conference on January 11, "Fortune" claimed that the largest pharmaceutical companies had lost over $20 billion in 20 minutes. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (2003) expressly prohibited Medicare from negotiating bulk prescription drug prices and

title: Presidency of Donald Trump
text: throughout his presidency, Trump said he would cut the costs of pharmaceuticals. During his first seven months in office, there were 96 price hikes for every drug price cut. In May 2018, Trump announced that he would not allow Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices from pharmaceutical companies, abandoning a promise he made as candidate. Shortly after the 2018 mid-term elections, the large pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced a price increase for dozens of drugs, after it had reportedly bowed to pressure not to do so earlier by the Trump administration. In September 2017, Trump nominated

title: Health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration
text: room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail. Congressional proponents argue that drugs manufactured overseas by U.S. companies could be imported and purchased more cheaply in the U.S. Drug manufacturers argue that certain foreign countries have price controls, which they recoup by charging higher prices in the U.S. Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama is supportive of importing drugs, provided safety concerns related to the drugs can be addressed. This is because drugs manufactured outside the country may be held to different standards. According to Bloomberg News, drugmakers agreed in

title: First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency
text: U.S. Steel's Mario Longhi, SpaceX's Elon Musk, International Paper's Mark Sutton, and Corning's Wendell Weeks promised to reward the companies who stay in the United States with aggressive cuts on U.S. federal regulations governing their companies by "75 percent or more." On January 31, Trump met with CEOs of pharmaceutical firms, including Novartis's Joseph Jimenez who also represented the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America—the pharmaceutical industry's powerful lobbying group, Merck & Co.'s Kenneth Frazier, Johnson & Johnson, Celgene's Robert Hugin, Eli Lilly, Amgen's Robert Bradway. Trump called for lower prices, "We have no choice. For Medicare, for Medicaid. We

title: Economic policy of Donald Trump
text: and "nonsense figure" because it was four times the entire cost of the Medicare prescription-drug system. Trump abandoned the plan in May 2018, as well as his campaign promise to allow Americans to import cheaper pharmaceuticals from foreign countries. Unlike his rivals in the 2016 Republican primary race, Trump opposes cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits. This is a departure from Trump's earlier views; in his book published in 2000, Trump called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" and said it should be privatized. Trump previously proposed raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 from 67, but he backed

title: First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency
text: have to get the prices way down." In return, he promised to boost the pharmaceutical companies competitiveness by curbing regulations "from 9,000 pages" to "100 pages," and by lowering pharmaceutical companies' tax rates. Trump noted that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals "force pharmaceutical companies to spend years and billions of dollars developing drugs." He promised his nomination for FDA Commissioner would oversee an FDA overhaul. In the listening session with pharmaceutical industry leaders, Trump noted that, "it costs sometimes $2.5 billion on average, actually, to come up with a new product. ...15 years, $2.5 billion to come up with

title: Economic policy of Donald Trump
text: measures that would reduce the value of the existing debt, making it cheaper to repurchase, would increase the cost of issuing new debt. Such a threat also could undermine the stability of global financial markets." Trump has called for allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with prescription-drug companies to get lower prices for the Medicare Part D prescription-drug benefit, something currently prohibited by law. Trump has claimed on several occasions that this proposal would save $300 billion a year. Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker for the "Washington Post", gave this statement a "four Pinocchios" rating, writing that this was a "truly absurd"

title: Online pharmacy
text: President Obama’s budget supports a plan to allow people to buy cheaper drugs from other countries. A 2016 study suggested that providing health insurance coverage may significantly reduce personal prescription drug importation and the subsequent risk of exposure to counterfeit, adulterated, and substandard medications. Further, health insurance coverage is likely to be particularly effective at reducing importation among persons who were Hispanic; born in Latin America, Russia, or Europe; and traveled to developing countries. A report in the journal Clinical Therapeutics found that U.S. consumers face a risk of getting counterfeit drugs because of the rising Internet sales of drugs,

title: Political positions of Donald Trump
text: drug market. In the same document, Trump acknowledged that mental health care in the U.S. is often inadequate but offered no immediate solution to the problem, instead stating that "there are promising reforms being developed in Congress." Trump also emphasized the removal of market entry barriers for drug providers and improved access to imported medication corresponding to safety standards. Explaining how he would address the problem of ensuring the people that would lose their insurance coverage if Obamacare were repealed, Trump said, "We have to come up, and we can come up with many different plans. In fact, plans you

title: Novartis
text: information the pharmaceutical company needed. Later, it became clear, however, that then-CEO Joseph Jimenez and Cohen communicated via email multiple times during 2017, which included ideas to lower drug prices to be discussed with the president. According to the report, several of the ideas appeared later in Trump's drug pricing plan, released in early 2018, in which pharmaceutical companies were protected from reduced revenues. Novartis Novartis International AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies by both market capitalization and sales. Novartis manufactures the drugs clozapine (Clozaril), diclofenac (Voltaren),

title: Foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration
text: will not be deterred and will vigorously defend our industry." The Canadian dollar fell to a 14-month low on the announcement. During a summer 2017 meeting about immigration, Trump objected to receiving immigrants from Haiti, reportedly saying "they all have AIDS." The White House denied the report. During a meeting with congressional leaders on January 11, 2018, Trump complained about the number of immigrants from Haiti, saying "Why do we need more Haitians, take them out." He then referred to Haiti and El Salvador, as well as unspecified African nations, as "shithole countries", although specific facts and details about the

title: Political positions of Bernie Sanders
text: regardless of any patents, and authorize other companies to compose cheaper generic versions of a drug in the event of the price for that drug being higher than the median price in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan. Sanders said in a statement that the United States was the only country in the world that allowed "pharmaceutical companies to charge any price they want for any reason they want" and that the "greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans". On February 5, 2017, Sanders said Trump was a "fraud" for appointing multiple billionaires to his

title: Aaron D. Ford
text: cost of making and marketing drugs, in addition to rebates they may provide. The law also works to create more transparency around PBMs, compelling them to act in insurers' best interests and bans PBMs from forbidding pharmacists from discussing lower-cost options with patients, something called a gag clause. Ford passed a “fiduciary duty” bill which removed exemptions for broker-dealers and financial advisors from rules that applied to financial planners and held them accountable for meeting a fiduciary duty to their clients. Ford said he proposed the rule because of concerns that President Trump was “trying to do everything to stop”

title: 2018 State of the Union Address
text: tax overhaul. He also shared that the FDA had approved more drugs in 2017 than in any year prior. Additionally, his speech covered his administration's goal to give veterans choice for their healthcare, as well as allowing patients with terminal illnesses to get access to experimental treatments. Trump emphasized that one of his top priorities in 2018 is to reduce the price of prescription drugs, citing that drugs in other countries cost far less than the same drugs in the United States. The State of the Union Address was given at 9 pm EST on January 30, 2018. Distribution of

title: First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency
text: 'Buy American' Tax Plan, which they claim would add a "whopping tax hike of more than $1 trillion on American families and small businesses over 10 years." The import tariff would raise prices at Wal-Mart, for example, directly impacting lower income families. "The Washington Post" reported on April 25, that Trump had agreed to delaying funding for the construction of the wall until September to avoid a government shutdown. On January 25, Trump signed an executive order, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States", to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General and their departments

title: Direct-to-consumer advertising
text: 15, 2018, the Trump administration made a proposal that would require pharmaceutical companies to make medication prices transparent on their television advertisements. The proposal pertains to all prescription medications that cost more than $35 a month, with the price being clearly and legibly revealed at the end of the advertisement. However, according to Rachel Sachs, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, the "government is unwilling to take enforcement action" and "will take many months if not years for this regulation to be implemented". Supporters of DTCPA argue that advertisements increase competition which leads to lower

title: Executive Order 13813
text: and want insurance that pays for their treatments, they will be out of luck". According to The Economist, Trump’s plans "are likely to end up inflicting the most pain on self-employed, middle- to upper-income folk—in other words, on a Republican constituency". Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty Murray reached a compromise to amend the Affordable Care Act to fund cost cost-sharing reductions. President Trump had stopped paying the cost sharing subsidies and the Congressional Budget Office estimated his action would cost $200 billion, cause insurance sold on the exchange to cost 20% more and cause one million people to lose

title: Presidency of Donald Trump
text: run), complained about the offshore drilling plan. The move raised ethical questions because Trump owns a resort in Florida and because Florida is a swing state that Trump would like to win in the 2020 presidential election. "NBC News" said that the decision had the appearance of "transactional favoritism" and that it was likely to lead to lawsuits. That same month, the administration enacted 30% tariffs on solar panels. The American solar energy industry is highly reliant on foreign parts (80% of parts are made abroad); as a result, the tariffs could raise the costs of solar energy, reduce innovation

title: Biomedical research in the United States
text: relocate their headquarters overseas to gain a tax advantage, including Medtronic and Endo International. Pfizer's own attempt to take over the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca aborted in 2014 after Pfizer admitted plans to cut research spending in the combined company. One policy concern for the Obama administration has been the steep rise in the price of prescription drugs, in a country where these prices are largely unregulated. From January 2008 to December 2014, the price of commonly used branded drugs increased by a little over 127%, even as the price of commonly prescribed generic drugs decreased by almost 63%. In

title: Presidency of Donald Trump
text: Navarro as the first Director of the National Trade Council. In April 2017, Trump imposed a tariff on Canada's softwood lumber industry, following complaints from dairy farmers in Wisconsin about Canada's dairy pricing policy. The Trump administration announced a deal with China in May 2017 where China would increase imports of US beef, speed up its approvals of genetically modified products and allow foreign-owned financial groups to offer credit rating services in China while the United States would allow imports of cooked poultry meat from China, encourage exports of liquid natural gas to China, and tacitly endorse Beijing's geopolitical and