Neera Tanden

And they do the same thing with hospitals.

And essentially it helps bring the whole price system down by, you know,

taking negotiating power and concentrating it.

And this is why I think it's important for Medicare to negotiate drug prices because you have something that has a lot of market power able to match the power of like near monopoly prescription drug companies.

So I think, you know, other countries have used that model.

Other countries have also done single-payer.

But in a system that's going to be, that you imagine, short of single-payer, having the government help, you know, basically negotiate with employers and, like, bring all the employers together and renegotiate rates down,

in a way where companies can still be profitable, but you actually are concerned about consumer costs as well, you know, I think that's an important step.

The Trump administration is trying to lower health care costs and actually lower

the level of federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans.

So the Trump administration recently, you know, tried to put the brakes on some overpayments to Medicare Advantage, which Medicare Advantage is a private insurance in the Medicare system, which historically has been, you know, overcharging the federal government

much more than it pays for traditional Medicare, fee-for-service Medicare that the government is just handling.

So that's one area.

And Trump Rx, look,

Basically, the Democrats in Congress passed Medicare drug negotiation.

They have not undone that.

And in some ways, it seems like they're trying to act like they're building on that by lowering drug costs.

But, you know, whatever, that's good.

It's good that this is an area where they are trying to continue that work.

And there are plenty of areas that are not continuing important good work.