Trump Forces Big Pharma to Swallow a Bitter Pill | Which Voter Are You?

The president has been tougher on drug companies than Barack Obama on an issue that animates voters of all political stripes.

When Nashville native Robyn Erickson came to the defense of Donald Trump during a mid-October town hall in Tennessee organized by OZY, she didn’t give the typical litany of responses — the economy or conservative judges or even immigration. Challenging suggestions that the president has not achieved meaningful successes in office, Erickson, a conservative, said, “There have been more generic drugs approved in the last year than at any other time.” She added that the president had helped negotiate lower drug prices and alternatives to Big Pharma drugs for doctors to prescribe. “How many people know there is no longer a muzzle over your pharmacist’s mouth?”

The moment was a reminder of how Trump’s drug politics, particularly around pricing and opioid abuse, remain attractive two years after his election. As Erickson stated, the Food and Drug Administration under Trump has approved more generic drugs than ever before, clearing a record 971 during fiscal year 2018.

The president also signed two bills in October designed to prevent “gag order” agreements prohibiting pharmacists from helping patients find lower-cost alternatives to the big-money brands. Those brands, in turn, argue that the billions it costs them to develop new pharmaceuticals should grant them a monopoly on those cures once they are brought to market. Since Trump announced a nearly 50-point blueprint to reduce drug costs in early May, there have been fewer brand-name-drug price hikes. An Associated Press investigation found that drug prices on average are still rising, but less dramatically than in the past.

As part of our continuing Ground Game coverage, OZY interviewed a wide array of voters in pivotal races.

What's it like to be a Black female Republican in 2018? Shamike Bethea, a 38-year-old from Fayetteville, North Carolina, replies: “Check out my Facebook page.” There, the daily jousting turns toward whether she’s truly Black and how she could support a man like Donald Trump.

How? Because the tax cuts have put more money in her pocket, the economy is booming and she just digs the president’s style.

But Atlanta, Georgia, resident Claudia Fitzwater sees things differently. When she arrived from Colombia as part of an international exchange teaching program, Fitzwater didn’t expect to build a life in the Peach State. But she found love after teaching in the Atlanta area for five years, got married and continued to teach. After the couple had a daughter, Fitzwater had to drive nearly two hours each day to and from her in-laws for three years, because they couldn’t get off the waiting list for an affordable daycare. So when Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat running for governor, announced a campaign built on more compassionate immigrant laws, additional funding for education and more accessible childcare, Fitzwater was thrilled. Abrams was a stark contrast to the Republican nominee, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who ran primary ads promising to “round up criminal illegals” in his pickup truck. “You can’t destroy our life and think that everybody who comes into the United States is coming to take people’s jobs,” she says.

Father Angelo Romano has become renowned as a peace builder in West Africa. Can he work his magic in Senegal?

Father Angelo Romano is backed by a wall of books, fiddling with a white tassel — a rosary substitute, perhaps? I dare not ask because the 53-year-old Catholic priest, professor and peacemaker seems agitated, reluctant to waste time. Eventually, he settles, unfurling stories about mediating conflicts across Africa on behalf of the Sant’Egidio community. A lay religious organization with 60,000 members in 73 countries, “Sant’Egidio is three Ps,” Romano says, quoting Pope Francis: “prayer, poor [people] and peace.”

When he’s not presiding over Sunday Mass at the Basilica of Saint Bartholomew in Rome, the Memorial Church for the New Christian Martyrs (we chuckle about long Catholic names), or teaching contemporary history at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Vatican City, Romano facilitates peace through dialogue. His current focus? Senegal, where a decades-long conflict between the government and the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) has led to the death and displacement of thousands.