Everyone Wants to Reduce Drug Prices. So Why Can’t We Do It?
Of all the promises President Trump made for the early part of his term, controlling stinging drug prices might have seemed the easiest to achieve.

Of all the promises President Trump made for the early part of his term, controlling stinging drug prices might have seemed the easiest to achieve.

An angry public overwhelmingly wants change in an easily vilified industry. The pharmaceutical industry’s recent publicity nightmare included 1,000 percent price increases and a smirking chief executive who said, “I liken myself to the robber barons.” Even powerful members of Congress from both parties have said that drug prices are too high.

But any momentum to curtail prescription drug costs — a problem that a large number of Americans now believe government should solve — has been lost amid rancorous debates over replacing Obamacare and stalled amid roadblocks erected via lobbying and industry cash.

“There is a very aggressive lobby that is finding any and all means to thwart any reform to a system that has produced very lucrative profits,” said Ameet Sarpatwari, an epidemiologist and lawyer at Harvard Medical School who follows drug legislation. “Everything that’s coming out is being hit and hit hard — even stuff that’s common-sensical.”