Trump Says He Has `Great Health Plans' Coming Out Within 4 Weeks

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration would have “great health plans” coming out within four weeks.

The president, who has tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, didn’t elaborate on his statement, made during a rally in Elkhart, Indiana. A White House spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests to clarify the statement.

Trump told the crowd that Obamacare is “failed experiment” then added “but wait till you see the plans we have coming out, literally, over the next four weeks, we have great health care plans coming out.”

The Trump administration proposed regulation changes in February that allowed for expansion of so-called skinny short-term health insurance plans that don’t comply with Obamacare rules such as covering pre-existing conditions or providing comprehensive coverage. It wasn’t clear whether that was what Trump was referring to in the rally.

On Friday, the president plans to release a proposal to bring down U.S. drug prices.

The drug price plan is called American Patients First, and is meant to increase pharmaceutical competition and lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters in advance on Thursday.

The pharmaceutical proposal would lift rules that prevent government programs from getting better drug discounts, push other developed nations with tighter price controls to pay more in the interest of fair trade, would create incentives for drug companies to lower list prices, and would try to prevent drug makers from extending monopolies by gaming the system.

--With assistance from Chelsea Mes and Anna Edney

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning, John Harney

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