In an exclusive interview with the Washington Reporter, Rep. Barry Moore (R., Ala.) praised President Donald Trump’s new TrumpRx initiative and said the program reflects a monumental achievement to lowering drug costs for Americans. President Trump has endorsed Moore for the Alabama senate election.
Moore, who has worked on the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, said Trump has repeatedly highlighted how foreign countries take advantage of the U.S., and how it is crucial to get lower prices for working Americans still dealing with the impact of Biden’s inflation.
“It’s incredible,” Moore said, when asked about the impact of TrumpRx and how it has helped Americans get drugs for lower costs. “Trump, he’s a great businessman, he’s a great negotiator, but that was just an obvious thing that needed to be fixed.”
Trump, Moore said, regularly tells the story of his friend who bought a popular weight-loss drug in Europe for about $120, only to see the same product priced around $1,200 in the U.S. “America was subsidizing global pharmaceuticals for other nations, on the back of our companies, on the back of our health care system, on the back of our citizens,” Moore said.
In Trump’s TrumpRx program, the cost of many of the most commonly-used drugs have been reduced by 70 percent or 80 percent from the list price.
Moore argued the problem is that much of the health care system is dominated by powerful intermediaries that block competition and drive up costs for patients. He took direct aim at health insurers, saying large, “monopolized” insurance companies have gained too much control over medical decisions.
“We don’t need these monopolized health care companies controlling health care in this country,” Moore said, adding that treatment decisions should be made by patients and their physicians, not by insurance companies requiring prior approvals or denying care.
He said the current system forces doctors to seek permission from insurers before treating patients and described that dynamic as backward and harmful to everyday care.
Moore said he supports a more market-driven approach to health care, including allowing people to shop for coverage across state lines and giving patients more direct control over their health care dollars through tax credits or refunds.
“We’ve got to decentralize health care,” Moore said, arguing that competition and consumer choice, not a small number of corporate decision-makers, should shape the system.
Moore previously spoke with the Washington Reporter about other policy fights, including efforts to crack down on illegal Chinese vapes and fentanyl-laced products harming children.
