Trump announces $6. 6 billion in prescription drug discounts " but HHS is still figuring out how to pay for them

Published Sep 25 2020 at 4:44 PM GMT

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President Trump has launched a last-minute prescription drug payment plan with no clear way to pay for it.
Trump announced Thursday that his administration would be mailing $200 prescription drug coupons to seniors using Medicare, totaling $6.6 billion.
But as of Friday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services was still figuring out where that money would come from.
In what Stat News called a "political ploy" just six weeks before Election Day, Trump issued executive orders promising to send coupons to 33 million Medicare beneficiaries "to curry favor with seniors who view drug prices as a priority.
The $6.6 billion to pay for it would apparently come from Trump's proposed "most favored nations" drug pricing proposal, which would mandate the Medicare program would only pay the lowest international price for prescription drugs.