Another campaign promise broken

“When it comes time to negotiate the cost of drugs, we are going to negotiate like crazy,” Trump said in New Hampshire in early 2016.

Pelosi’s staff spent months over the course of this year trying to get White House support for her measure to allow the government to negotiate prices for up to 250 drugs per year, with tough financial penalties for companies that refused to come to the table.

But after months of holding his fire, Trump is now publicly bashing Pelosi’s bill. And while Trump still talks about the need to lower drug prices in general, he has not proposed an alternative drug price negotiation plan of his own.

  The Hill

Doesn't need to. All he needs to do is blame Democrats for it not happening.

White House officials argue that Trump is still committed to the overall goal of lowering drug prices. He just wants to focus on a bill that actually has a chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate and being signed into law, they added.

[...]

“Pelosi and her Do Nothing Democrats drug pricing bill doesn’t do the trick. FEWER cures! FEWER treatments!” Trump tweeted on Friday, echoing the traditional Republican argument that negotiation would hinder development of new drugs. “Time for the Democrats to get serious about bipartisan solutions to lowering prescription drug prices for families.”

[...]

The White House is instead supporting a somewhat more modest bipartisan bill in the Senate from Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). That bill does not include negotiation, though. Instead, it would cap out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors and limit drug price increases in Medicare to the rate of inflation.

Democrats think highlighting Trump’s lack of follow-through on negotiating drug prices for Medicare will be a strong line of attack in the 2020 campaign.

[...]

“House Democrats are taking the bold action to negotiate lower drug prices that Candidate Trump always said was necessary, and working people won’t like it if President Trump sells them out on one of the most important kitchen table issues in America right now,” Pelosi spokesman Henry Connelly said Friday after Trump’s critical tweets.

They won't like it, but will they do anything about it?

The pharmaceutical industry is a powerful force in Washington, making any action difficult. Even the more modest Grassley-Wyden bill faces a tough path, given that many Republican senators oppose one of its key provisions, which would limit Medicare drug price increases to the rate of inflation.

Party of the people.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.