President Donal Trump Signed an Executive Order on Drug Prices — Here's What It Means

Could the utterly unconscionable prices on prescription medications soon be getting some relief? It appears that the unimaginably ludicrous prices on life-saving or otherwise life-improving medications may be improved following another Executive Order signed by President Donald Trump.

If you have felt firsthand the pains of paying exorbitant prices on medications, you'll want to pay attention to this report.

Does the president really have the power to enact a mandate that private, for-profit drug companies must follow? Will President Trump's latest Executive Order truly help everyday Americans see some sense of relief when it comes to paying for their necessary prescription medications?

Keep reading as we make sense of President Trump's Executive Order on drug prices.

Let's go back a few weeks. On April 12, President Trump signed an Executive Order entitled: Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First. In that Executive Order, President Trump outlined in the "Policy" section: "It is the policy of the United States that Federal health care programs, intellectual property protections, and safety regulations are optimized to provide access to prescription drugs at lower costs to American patients and taxpayers."

In that Executive Order, President Trump gave a timeline of 60 days for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, aka Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to offer a proposal and guidance relating to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.

This laid the groundwork for a forthcoming Executive Order, which appears to be another instance of President Trump forecasting his intentions for various policies.

"Within 1 year of the date of this order, the Secretary shall take appropriate steps to develop and implement a rulemaking plan...to improve the ability of the Medicare program to obtain better value for high-cost prescription drugs and biological products covered by Medicare," per the April 15 Executive Order.

A month later, on May 12, President Trump signed another Executive Order, this time entitled: Delivering Most-favored-nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients. Per this Executive Order, "The United States has for too long turned its back on Americans, who unwittingly sponsor both drug manufacturers and other countries."

Furthermore, "The inflated prices in the United States fuel global innovation while foreign health systems get a free ride. This abuse of Americans’ generosity, who deserve low-cost pharmaceuticals on the same terms as other developed nations, must end."

A Fact Sheet was published along with the Executive Order, entitled: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Put American Patients First by Lowering Drug Prices and Stopping Foreign Free-riding on American Pharmaceutical Innovation.

Per the Fact Sheet, "The Order instructs the Administration to communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal."

Also, should drug manufacturers fail to comply, President Trump is empowered to "take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anticompetitive practices."