Trump Is Taking on Big Pharma - It's Long Overdue

I've seen enough broken systems to know when something's off.

You don't need a white paper or a panel discussion to figure out what’s happening with drug prices in this country.

Just talk to people.

They'll tell you.

Costs are too high. Way too high. And for years, nothing's really changed.

That's why President Donald Trump going after Big Pharma matters.

Not because it sounds good politically, but because it's targeting a problem that's been ignored — or danced around — for a long time.

The pharmaceutical industry has gotten very good at shifting blame.

If prices go up, it's someone else's fault:

—Insurers.

—Hospitals.

—Middlemen.

Anyone but the companies actually setting the prices.

But let's be honest about where the power is.

Drug manufacturers decide what a product costs when it hits the market.

Everything else flows from there.

And those prices haven't been trending in the right direction.

The industry's go-to defense is that research and development is expensive.

That's true — to a point.

Developing new treatments isn't cheap, and innovation matters.

But that argument starts to wear thin when you look at how much money is going into things that have nothing to do with innovation.

Turn on the TV, scroll online, watch a game.

While you do so, you’re going to see pharmaceutical ads everywhere.

That’s not accidental.

That's billions of dollars in marketing, pushing high-cost brand-name drugs into the mainstream. At the same time, these companies are spending heavily in Washington, making sure the rules of the game stay in their favor.

That combination — pricing power, marketing muscle, and political influence—has kept the pressure off for years.

What’s changed is that there’s finally a willingness to push back.

The Trump administration's approach is straightforward: if Americans are paying too much, something in the system needs to give.

That means questioning how prices are set, why competition isn't doing more to bring costs down, and whether the incentives are aligned with patients — or just profits.

It also means recognizing what's working and what isn't.

There are parts of the system, like pharmacy benefit managers, that exist to negotiate prices and create leverage against manufacturers.

They're not perfect, but they do serve a purpose.

If you weaken them without addressing the root issue — manufacturer pricing — you risk making the problem worse, not better.

That’s where the focus needs to stay.

Because for all the complexity in healthcare policy, this part isn't complicated. If the starting price is too high, everything downstream gets more expensive.

And right now, too many Americans are stuck dealing with the consequences.

I’ve seen what happens when leadership decides to take on entrenched interests.

It's not easy.

—There's push-back.

—There's noise.

And there are plenty of people who benefit from keeping things exactly the way they are.

But that doesn't mean you don’t take the fight.

For once, Washington isn’t just talking about drug prices—it’s actually looking at the source of the problem. That’s a step in the right direction.

And if it holds, it might finally mean some relief for the people who’ve been paying the price all along.

Mitch Brown is an Army veteran with extensive experience as a linguist, intelligence, and reconnaissance. In the U.S. House, in a legislative role, Mr. Brown eventually began his work on policy for the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security. He was subsequently appointed to serve as deputy White House Liaison for the Department of Labor for the Trump administration. Read more Mitch Brown Insider articles — Click Here Now.