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FIRST ON FOX: A conservative group founded by ex-Vice President Mike Pence is taking aim at a key policy being used by President Donald Trump’s White House.
Advancing American Freedom (AAF) is rolling out a six-figure digital ad campaign Monday criticizing Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) drug pricing as “socialist price controls,” according to AAF President Tim Chapman.
The 30-second advertisement begins, “China is America’s biggest economic competitor. They want, and often steal, what America has — our innovations, our manufacturing capabilities, our high-skilled, high-wage jobs.”
“If politicians in Washington start to place price controls on our most innovative products, like prescription drugs, we’ll be handing over American jobs and life-saving research to China on a silver platter,” the ad continued.
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It ended with a call to action: “Tell Congress to say ‘no’ to China by saying ‘no’ to MFN price controls.”
And while pressuring the GOP majority on Capitol Hill is the campaign’s main goal, it appears to be a response to Trump rolling out such a policy several times in recent months.
Earlier this month, Trump unveiled agreements between the federal government and two top drug companies aimed at lowering the cost of popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, among others.
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The partnership with Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk will make prices for drugs aimed at helping Americans with obesity, diabetes and heart disease fall by hundreds of dollars, Trump said.
It would also lower prices for Medicare and Medicaid patients who rely on such drugs.
A White House fact sheet said MFN drug pricing would also apply to “all new medicines that they bring to market.”
It’s one of several similar announcements by Trump in recent months that are aimed at lowering the soaring costs of prescription drugs in the U.S.
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The new lower prices will be available at a website called TrumpRx.
Most health insurance plans already help Americans pay less than the list price of prescription prices, but many do not cover the aforementioned drugs — including when used solely for weight loss.
The president called the move “a triumph for American patients that will save lives and improve the health of millions and millions of Americans” in an announcement at the White House.
But a memo released by AAF in September warned that Trump’s drug policies could “mean significant reductions in American research and development” in the pharmaceutical sphere.
Chapman told Fox News Digital of the latest ad buy, “More regulations and red tape will result in fewer cures and life-saving drugs coming to market, ultimately costing American lives.”
“Advancing American Freedom strongly supports the power of free markets. To deliver lower prices for Americans, we need fewer government regulations, not more,” he said.
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It’s not the first time this year that Pence’s group has broken from Trump. AAF also criticized Trump’s use of tariffs as well as his more recent call to end the filibuster in the Senate.
The White House pushed back on AAF’s characterization when reached by Fox News Digital.
“Anyone calling President Trump’s historic drug pricing deals ‘price controls’ is either too stupid or dishonest to be taken seriously. Despite being just four percent of the world’s population, Americans have covered nearly 75 percent of global pharmaceutical research costs by paying several times more for drugs than our peers in other wealthy countries pay,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News Digital.
“President Trump’s deals are equalizing this burden by making other wealthy countries shoulder their fair share for the pharmaceutical innovation that’s saving lives — thereby restoring the free market principles that Mike Pence supposedly support.”
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