Bill Cassidy just can’t quit President Trump’s international price index  

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is sometimes credited with popularizing the concept of using foreign prices to limit what Americans pay for prescription drugs, in large part because he put out a white paper floating the idea in May 2018. Six months later, the Trump administration appeared to take his advice. Cassidy, meanwhile, has since migrated in the opposite direction — at a Senate Finance Committee hearing in July, he voted yes on a Republican amendment to effectively ban President Trump’s signature drug pricing proposal.

But in a conversation I had with Cassidy last week, he resurfaced his interest in the foreign price-cap concept, especially in the context of Trump’s plan to import prescription drugs from Canada. His reasoning, in the form of a question: “Why import the drug, if you can import the price?”

There’s plenty more in my Q&A with Cassidy, including his take on Pelosi’s drug pricing bill and his predictions for a bipartisan deal. Read more here.