Yang pitches public manufacturing of generic drugs

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang on Tuesday released a plan to lower prescription drug costs, which includes allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and creating public manufacturing facilities to make generic drugs. 

The Democratic candidate also said that as president, he would allow for forced licensing of medications if companies can’t agree with the government on a reasonable price and use prices paid by other countries as a baseline.

According to his campaign, Yang would also allow for importing prescription medication from other countries “if all else fails.”

“For too long, pharmaceutical companies have been trying to profit from the sick while imposing exorbitant costs on the American people. It needs to stop,” Yang said in a statement on the plan. 

“If the pharmaceutical companies are not willing to compromise, we need to ensure the U.S. government has the ability to force licenses for these drugs to companies who will, to control the outrageous cost of prescription drugs,” he added. 

Other presidential candidates have also called for some of the same actions.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would allow the government to make lower-cost generic drugs and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would tie drug prices to lower sums paid in other countries.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s plan also calls for allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. 

The Trump administration has also suggested using international drug prices to set the price of some drugs covered by Medicare. 

The House is expected to vote this week on a Democratic bill that would allow the Health and Human Services secretary to negotiate lower prices on up to 250 drugs annually.