Trump: ‘My Administration Has Taken Bold Action To Make Prescription Drugs More Affordable’

EXCERPT: 

TRUMP: "We secured $6 billion a little while ago, new funding, to fight the opioid epidemic, which is really an epidemic, and it is a tremendous epidemic in Ohio, tremendous in Ohio. And we have got that was — and we have got — that was very important to Rob Portman, but this is a really big problem in Ohio. My administration has taken bold action to make prescription drugs more affordable. I did something the other day that they have never seen. Pfizer lifted their prices up, and Novartis and some others and I was not happy, and all of a sudden I got calls, I let them know I wasn't happy, I got calls, Sir, they are rescinding their price increases. And nobody has ever seen that before. And I give them credit. Novartis, Pfizer, and others, they have brought them back down to where they were. We're going to get drug prices down. We’re working very hard. Secretary Azar is with me. We went to a hospital, so beautiful. Secretary Azar and I are working very hard on eliminating the middleman, and we are going to bring prescription— because it is already happening — frankly, Pfizer and all could not have done what they did four weeks ago, and we are bringing drug prices down, prescription drug prices. We reformed — it is such an important — we reformed the Medicare drug discount program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors, saving seniors hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone. Why didn’t they do this before? We will always protect our seniors. We will take care of our seniors better than they have ever been taken care of."

(Applause)