Stephen Moore: Why New Drugs Won't Be Pills | CPAC

Good morning. Good morning. Alright, I must be in the right place. All the finest people are here. And of course, I'm here with the heads that know things about health policy. And yes, health policy is very sexy. And we're going to talk about it today. Really? You're going to talk sexy? Oh yes. Sex and health go together, right? That's true, yes. Let's get right to it. We were introduced, Obama didn't care. Look, health care is a mess. And we can fix it. The Trump administration is ready to do it. And let's talk a little bit today about how the rest of the world freeloads on American innovation. Steve, talk about those freeloaders. Well, hello everybody. Great to be here. Don't you love 2.0 Trump? It's even better than Trump 1.0. And what an honor it is that the four of us get to be Donald Trump's warm-up act. And Javier Meles. Yes, there you go. So, I'm very, very qualified to talk about the economy and health care. I worked at McDonald's for one year. So, I'm very, very qualified. I'm here to tell you a couple quick things. Number one, I just turned 65 and I will not join AARP. It's an evil organization. They're too liberal. I call it American Association for Ripping Off Old People. And we should get out of that. Number two, we need more... Phil, you're not old. We need more health care transparency in this country so people know what they're paying for. And hospitals are telling us what it's going to cost. And patients are telling us when they go to the hospital or when they buy drugs or when they go to see a physician. No one knows what these things cost. So, we have a market that needs to be fixed. And finally, and then I'll turn it over to the rest of you. You are so right, Jerry. We lead the world in drug innovation. 18 of the last 20 wonder drugs in America came from American pharmaceutical companies. And what's happening is the rest of the world is ripping us off. They're stealing our intellectual property. They're not paying their fair share. And we have to make sure we can bring drug prices down in the United States if these other countries pay their fair share. So, let's do it. And let me interject on this, Steve. One of the things we need to fix that was a holdover... You know, we talk about the importance of intellectual property rights in terms of our innovation. One of the things that had, God forbid, had Kamala Harris been elected was... And in 2023, the Biden administration tried to do just that by changing the rules by which innovate and award intellectual property. That's one of the first things that the Trump administration needs to do is to pledge to protect intellectual property and protect this thing called the Bayh-Dole Act. Phil, price control. It's not just the foreign countries, Europe, compulsory licensing, threatening our innovative companies. It's also right here, the ridiculous named Inflation Reduction Act. It's like a Saturday Night Live skit. It didn't reduce inflation, but it did all kinds of mischief. It raided Medicare, but it also introduced price controls that is hurting American innovation. Is anyone here seeing less inflation because of Inflation Reduction Act? Did you see your prices go down, paying less for drugs and groceries, everything worked just like Biden said? We call it the Inflation Acceleration Act. This is one of the most absurd, misnamed laws. See a head for knowing things. What they did that was so outrageous is they put these price controls on prescription drugs. And price controls are always a bad idea because when you put a price control on something, you create shortages. You get less of what you're price controlling. Everyone who lived through the 70s knows what happened when you put price controls on gasoline. You had long lines. You put price controls on medicines, you don't necessarily have shortages of the ones that already exist, but you get fewer new ones. You don't get new ones developed if there's a price control on them. And the craziest thing about Inflation Reduction Act is they used price controls to reduce the amount that Medicare spends on prescription drugs by over $200 billion. But they didn't use that money to shore up Medicare. They didn't use that money to send it to seniors in the form of rebates or lower prices or lower premiums. They used that money for giveaways to wind and solar guys and electric vehicles, all this unrelated left-wing spending. And so that bill is completely outrageous. Let me just finish my argument. This is even the craziest part. Inside the price controls, they have more draconian price controls on pills than they have on injections. So they actually created an incentive within it for every new drug that is developed now is going to be an injection because injections have a 13-year protection from price controls. Pills only have nine. Now, every person I know would rather take a pill than stick themselves with a needle. So this is one of the dumbest political things ever. So I'm hoping that Republicans, they should repeal every word of the Inflation Reduction Act in my head.