Department yesterday in washington, d. C. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us here today. It is an honor to be a today and to welcome President Trump to the department of health and Human Services. [applause] this is the first time in more than a decade weve had a president here in the humphrey building. [applause] as many of you have heard me say, it is the privilege of a lifetime to get to serve here at hhs with this Incredible Team that we have here on this absolutely Vital Mission of protecting and enhancing the health and wellbeing of all americans. It is an especially great privilege to work with and for someone who thinks as boldly as President Trump does about how to improve the health and wellbeing of the American People. Mr. President , i know i speak for my hhs colleagues to say that it is an honor to work on your healthcare priorities from lowering drug prices and securing better value in health care, increasing insurance choices
Initiative for Health Policy. I welcome you to brookings. Im pleased to host hhs secretary alex azar to discuss the administrations new proposal to lower prices for Medicare Part d drugs, which are drugs administered and built by physicians rather than dispensed by pharmacies. Aspects of this proposal mirrored one from the Obama Administration. It was not implement it due to composition in congress and a number of proposals over the last few years. The proposal to directly reduce prices for the average and other developing countries has not been proposed before. The event will begin with secretary azar presentation and thats a new proposal. And i will join them on stage to engage in a conversation about the proposal and after that he will take some questions from the audience. Alex azar was sworn in as President Trump sector of health and Human Services in january 2018. His current tenure at hhs is a second tour of duty at the department, after serving as general counsel and then deput
i should know that we an important role on the floor this morning, so i, and other members, will likely need to step out briefly to participate. we may briefly paused a hearing proceedings, although sometimes necessary,ot become dependent on the order in which people ask questions. we are here, to discuss the proposed mergers between four of the nation s five largest health insurance companies. in early july of this year, aetna announced it had reached a deal to purchase rival humana. if you years later, a few months later, at them i now sit sigma.l to purchase the department justice is currently reviewing these transactions. the industry s big five will be reduced t the big three. united care, and send, and aetna hem, and aetna. these acquisitions raise the questions is the product offerings will impact the market. that antitrust inquiry is whether the combination will lead to a market concentration that make substantially lessen competition. , and thensactions concurrent
now they regulate what earphones they can use because the league has established a contract with one of the providers and i want him to wear those. this is an ongoing 24-hour endeavor. it wants people to emulate him look up to these athletes and they do. and that they can tell you being involved in youth football this is very sad but it s true. in some instances, the only positive male role models that many young americans today have happened to be professional athletes they see on sundays or at night on television. i think it s important to preface that because this is not just a sport that s played on a field three hours at a time. this has deep impact throughout society and there are millions of young americans who look up to these players and whatever happens or does not happen has a deep impact on them. for many of them it s the only male role model they have unfortunately in many cases where people go wrong. that is why the rate rise case interested me. the situation wi
well, this is not a medicare ise because a medicare physician, i guess their very limited and cop strained about what constrained about what they can charge, so i guess it s more of a question about private insurance. you want to talk that, lou? yeah. the question reflects, again, the desire to have greater and greater transparency in all aspects of health care, including what providers charge. two things. first, even though there s no national requirement, i know at least in massachusetts if there s anyone here from massachusetts, there is a new law that requires exactly what you suggest, which is the posting of prices. so that ll be an interesting experiment to see what impact that has. there may be other states, i m just not aware of it. we ll hear from the consumer panel after us, i think what consumers want to know is our experience has been what consumers want to know is not what the provider charges so much as what do i have to pay, wh