Trump’s prescription to reduce drug prices takes small steps

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s long-promised plan to bring down drug prices may be less dramatic than he is claiming. It would mostly spare the pharmaceutical industry he previously accused of “getting away with murder.”

Instead he focuses on private competition and more openness to reduce America’s prescription pain.

In Rose Garden remarks at the White House Friday, Trump called his plan the “most sweeping action in history to lower the price of prescription drugs for the American people.” But it does not include his campaign pledge to use the massive buying power of the government’s Medicare program to directly negotiate lower prices for seniors.