President Trump announced Friday afternoon that he plans to convene a summit of health insurance CEOs to browbeat them into lowering prices — after he successfully coerced pharmaceutical companies to do so using the threat of tariffs.
Trump made the off-the-cuff announcement mere hours after venting on social media about insurers “ripping off America,” citing a Post op-ed on record corporate profits.
“I would say that maybe with one talk, they would be willing to cut their prices by 50, 60, or 70%,” Trump said at an event where nine pharmaceutical executives bent to his demands to reduce drug costs to align with rates paid by other developed countries.
“They’ve made a fortune. They’ve had stock prices that have gone up 13,14,15, 16, 17 and even 18 — think of this — they went up 1800%… Therefore, there’s a lot of fat that can be cut,” Trump said, without detailing what levers of federal power he would use to sway insurers.
Trump said “this is just an idea that I had standing here watching these great leaders saying that we’re going to have the lowest prices anywhere in the world.”
The president vowed to pressure widely detested insurance industry leaders as he seeks to calm the public’s economic concerns, which have tanked his approval rating on economic matters ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“I’m going to call a meeting. It could be in Florida this coming week, or it could be back in the White House the first week, not the second or third week. I’m going to call a meeting of the big insurance companies that have gotten so rich by receiving money — and really far, far more money than they’re entitled to,” Trump said.
“And I have a feeling maybe if they would act like these incredible, brilliant, responsible citizens behind me… I’m going to call a meeting of the insurance companies. I’m going to see if … they get their price down, to put it very bluntly.”
The insurance executive summit would come a roughly 22 million middle-class Americans who purchased insurance policies through Affordable Care Act exchanges experience higher premiums as a result of expiring pandemic-era subsidies, which congressional Democrats have fought to extend.
“I’m going to call in the insurance companies that are making so much money, and they have to make less — a lot less — and maybe we can have reasonable health care without, without having to cut them out and let it all go awry,” Trump said.
“So we’re going to be calling a meeting. It’ll be either in Florida or it’ll be here the first week [after his Christmas trip to Mar-a-Lago].”
