President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported generic medication might elevate some costs for sufferers, a key GOP lawmaker on well being points stated this week. However he stated that’s a doubtlessly worthwhile trade-off to guard the nation’s drug provide.
“The national security might be something worth paying for,” Sen. Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor, and Pensions Committee, stated July 22 in an unique interview with KFF Well being Information.
The U.S., which has grappled with drug shortages in recent times, depends totally on China to provide the lively elements in lots of antibiotics, in keeping with a examine revealed final fall in JAMA Well being Discussion board. Home services have closed or shifted to producing different medication.
“Do we want China to have that sort of leverage for these drugs to be produced principally, maybe 99%, over there, and we don’t have access to them if tension rises between the two countries?” stated Cassidy, who’s a doctor.
On July 21, Trump stated in a social media put up that he would give generic drug corporations two years to maneuver manufacturing again to the U.S., after which he would impose 100% tariffs on imported merchandise, rising to 200% the next yr. Generic medication make up an estimated 90% of all prescriptions stuffed within the U.S.
Cassidy, who has served in Congress since 2009, misplaced his bid for reelection in Might after Trump endorsed a Republican main challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow.
Final month, greater than 16 months after his vote to verify Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Division of Well being and Human Providers, Cassidy stated on CBS Information’ Face the Nation that the secretary broke guarantees he made to the senator, together with that he wouldn’t change the federal suggestions for childhood vaccines.
Requested whether or not he would summon Kennedy once more to debate these guarantees, Cassidy stated he had requested for him to look earlier than his committee however had not heard again about whether or not he would achieve this. Kennedy appeared earlier than the Senate HELP panel in April to debate the Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 finances request for HHS.
Cassidy advised KFF Well being Information that when he agreed to vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination, he trusted that Kennedy would preserve his phrase about not disparaging vaccines.
“If they agree to guardrails and disregard those guardrails, you can judge me,” Cassidy stated. “You may decide my judgment wasn’t very good, but I don’t think you can say I acted in bad faith.”
Regardless, Cassidy added, Kennedy was going to exert affect within the administration, and he thought it might be higher for Kennedy to be in an official put up, the place his work can be topic to oversight.
“I’m pretty sure that RFK was going to have the president’s ear whether he was in office or not,” he stated.
Whereas Kennedy’s efforts to roll again federal vaccine suggestions are being blocked by courts, this week researchers at Johns Hopkins College reported that the variety of measles circumstances confirmed within the U.S. thus far in 2026 has exceeded the overall for 2025 — making it the very best variety of circumstances in 35 years.
Cassidy, a principal creator of the 2020 No Surprises Act concentrating on shock medical payments, additionally stated he doesn’t assume Congress must make modifications to the regulation within the wake of studies that medical doctors and different healthcare suppliers are profitable large payouts beneath the arbitration system the regulation created. The No Surprises Act was supposed to defend sufferers from receiving huge payments for receiving medical care they didn’t know was outdoors their well being plan’s community.
An evaluation by The Wall Road Journal this week discovered that suppliers had been awarded almost $15 billion in disputed claims in 2025, greater than triple the 2024 determine of $4.08 billion.
“The initial step to make sure that people are getting their best deal is price transparency,” Cassidy stated.
The HELP Committee on July 22 overwhelmingly permitted advancing the Sufferers Deserve Worth Tags Act, a bipartisan invoice that might additional increase the necessities that hospitals, insurers, and different healthcare suppliers make costs public and out there to sufferers and employers. A Home committee superior an identical invoice this week, additionally with bipartisan assist, but it surely stays unclear whether or not both measure can be permitted by the total Home and Senate.
The interview — through which Cassidy additionally mentioned his Money and Worth for Sufferers proposal — was a part of the “How Would You Fix It?” sequence that includes Julie Rovner, KFF Well being Information’ chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Well being? podcast.
An abbreviated model of this interview aired July 23 in Episode 456 of What the Well being? From KFF Well being Information: “A Shrinking Safety Net.”
