Trump made big promises for prescription drugs. Can he keep them?

Trump made big promises for prescription drugs. Can he keep them?

President Trump promised many things in his campaigns and presidency — one of the largest being his fight to lower the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.

“It is unacceptable that Americans pay vastly more than people in other countries for the exact same drugs, often made in the exact same place. This is wrong, unfair, and together we will stop it,” Trump said earlier this year.

This week’s episode of Ballots and Dollars discusses whether or not this problem is as easy to solve at Trump claims it to be.

“There is no easy answer here,” says Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman, “which is why nothing has been done. Sometimes there is an easy answer, and it's just politically difficult to get done. On this one, there really is not an easy answer. It's not party specific either.”

What will it take to lower prices on pharmaceuticals?

So what are the challenges to lowering prices on pharmaceuticals? Well, it all boils down to money.

Here is what Newman had to say on the problem: “This actually gets to the whole question of free enterprise and capitalism. Should pharmaceutical companies even be normal publicly traded companies or should they be something that more like utilities, that are regulated in much the same way? And I'll tell you, I don't know the answer.”

The challenges are clear, and it may seem that President Trump bit off a little more than he could chew in this promise to the public. Listen to the entire episode to get the full story.