Our Unleash Prosperity Now (UP’s 501 (c)(4) sister organization) initiative to back Trump’s health care reforms, but steer them away from price-controls toward ideas that can deliver more cures at lower prices is reshaping the debate.

Newt Gingrich highlighted our recent study and emphasized our win-win solution to the vexing problem of other rich countries using price controls to free-ride off of the medical innovation driven by the US market:

Unleash Prosperity recently released a comprehensive analysis of drug prices in the public programs of the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. Unlike previous studies that focused only on brand-name drugs, this analysis also included generics and accounted for the volume of prescriptions in each country. This distinction is critical for understanding how a drug-pricing system works in practice rather than in theory.

The results are striking. Medicare and Medicaid pay on average 18 percent less per prescription than public programs in the other five countries. The reason is simple. Generic drugs in the United States are between 44 percent and 66 percent cheaper, and they account for 93 percent of all prescriptions. In peer countries, generics account for only 70 percent to 80 percent of prescriptions and cost substantially more….

By contrast, other developed nations suppress brand prices and protect generics from robust competition. The result is a system in which patients pay too much for everyday medicines, and manufacturers face limited returns for developing breakthrough therapies.

You can follow the progress on our Unleash Prosperity Now health care project on our Most Favored Patient website: