In a recent poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation on Friday, a huge majority of the voters believe that both, the Congress and the Trump Administration need to do more to make drugs affordable.
An unambiguous majority of 80% voters claimed that the costs of prescription drugs are quite unreasonable. According to half of the voters, the Congress and President Donald Trump should prioritize the passing legislation to cut down on the costs of prescription drugs – claiming that it should be a “top priority” for both the parties.
It has been found in the survey that 72% of the respondents believe that the pharmaceutical industry has a large influence in Washington – more or less the same as compared to the National Rifle Association.
In general, more than 3 in 4 respondents believe that all the parties – the Trump administration, congressional Democrats and congressional Republicans – are not doing much to reduce the costs of prescriptions drugs.
Trump, on the other hand, has been criticizing the high pricing on drugs since his initial year in the office. His criticism and tough talk regarding drug manufacturers goes back to the presidential campaign in 2016 when he called out to the pharmaceutical industry for “getting away with murder”.
In addition to that, Trump has favored the decision of permitting Medicare to communicate and negotiate drug pricing directly with pharmaceutical companies, whilst endorsing the expansion of importing cheaper medicine.
President Donald Trump said earlier this week that soon the administration would be revealing new policies on drug pricing.
“You’ll be seeing drug prices falling very substantially in the not-so-distant future, and it’s going to be beautiful,” said President Trump in New Hampshire during a press conference on the opioid epidemic.
The respondents of the poll, on the other hand, felt uncertain as to what the administration will do regarding this issue. Kaiser stated that only 39% of the respondents had faith that the cost of prescription drugs will be lowered in the near future.
91% of the Democrats and 80% of the independents stated that the administration is “not doing enough” regarding the issue.
Republicans are in full favor of the administration. Around one-third of the Republicans said that the administration is trying their best to lower the prices, whereas 56% said that they should work more on the issue.
When asked the general public, the vast majority does not believe that the pricing for prescription drugs will fall in the future. The percentage of the general public who does not trust any party regarding this issue rose from 12% during the year 2016 to 21%.
Republicans and Democrats both have faith in their own political parties to resolve the issue regarding drug pricing.
The survey was conducted from March 8-13, including 1,212 respondents.