Excerpt:
"For the same pharmaceutical products, US prices can be anywhere between two and ten times higher in US markets compared to prices across the border. Nor is importation allowed, even though this would drive prices toward equilibrium by facilitating market competition.

This problem has persisted for decades. US taxpayers and health insurance subscribers subsidize pharmaceutical products for the rest of the world. While many politicians have denounced this problem, and sworn to fix it with a genuine competitive market, the barriers have traced to the same source: entrenched industrial interests that like the rigged monopolistic system of price gouging as it is.

This has long been the status quo. This has now been shattered by a new executive order from the Trump administration. The order requires government agencies to be better stewards of tax dollars by only paying the lowest prices for drugs on international markets.

It also seeks to “facilitate direct-to-consumer purchasing programs for pharmaceutical manufacturers that sell their products to American patients,” thus cutting out myriad levels of institutions–the hidden middlemen–that currently skim off exorbitant profits while contributing nothing of value.

It further asks the FDA to certify “circumstances under which waivers will be consistently granted to import prescription drugs on a case-by-case basis from developed nations with low-cost prescription drugs.” Those bemoaning Trump’s tariffs should celebrate this opening of international markets to free trade and the flow of goods across borders.

This is a sweeping order with profound implications that could indeed reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals in the US in striking ways. Trump speculates that it could drop prices by more than 80 percent, which could be true in particular cases. This kind of policy move is something that many reformers, including many on the left, have favored for decades. At last, we are seeing some efforts to rebalance the scales, provided they hold up in the courts and are eventually ratified by legislation. "