House Speaker Paul Ryan wants Donald Trump to ease up on targeting pharmaceutical companies, and said in a new interview that the current Medicare system works “extremely well.”
Ryan sought to play down Trump’s fiery rhetoric against the pharmaceutical industry in an interview with the news service Axios, just after Trump said in a recent Washington Post interview that the industry is not going to be “politically protected” anymore.
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“I don’t speak like that, generally speaking,” Ryan said. “I’m always looking for win-win situations, and I believe there’s a lot more we can do to bring down the price of drugs.”
Ryan also defended the current system under Medicare Part D, the program’s prescription drug component. When Medicare Part D was created in 2007, it prohibited Medicare from negotiating with companies to lower prices. However, Medicare does get rebates for the products from drug makers.
As drug prices rise, Trump and many Democrats have pushed for Medicare to get negotiating powers.
Ryan said that he believes the “current premium support system with Part D works extremely well. I think there’s some real success stories … and I think we need to tell that story.”
