Op-ed: Will phar­ma re­al­ly pay for Trump’s lat­est law­less promise to 33 mil­lion Medicare ben­e­fi­cia­ries? Not like­ly

Sit­ting atop the ex­ec­u­tive branch, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is the ul­ti­mate au­thor­i­ty at the FDA. He can fast track any vac­cine to ap­proval him­self. If it came to that, of course.

What he can’t do is uni­lat­er­al­ly or­der the leg­isla­tive branch to loosen the Trea­sury’s cof­fers for $6.6 bil­lion. Nor can he com­mand phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to pay for $200 vouch­ers sent to 33 mil­lion Medicare ben­e­fi­cia­ries for pre­scrip­tion drugs be­fore the elec­tion.

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