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The United States President, Joe Biden, with the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Thursday moved to cut down the prices of drugs to avert the worried cost of living in the States.
The duo announced the deal as they prepared to make their debut joint trip since Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential election less than a month ago.
This information was contained in a statements released by the White House, Thursday.
According to the statement, "The “historic” agreement with drugmakers will reduce the price of 10 key medicines for seniors, for conditions including diabetes, heart failure, and blood clots."
"The deal will save older Americans $1.5 billion and the Medicare federal health insurance scheme $6 billion in the first year," the statements added.
While the deal was Biden’s brainchild, he appears to have chosen to share the credit with Harris as she ramps up her battle with Republican Donald Trump ahead of November’s election.
Harris has already made bringing down high prices a key plank of her election campaign and hopes the announcement on medicines will win over voters who have long been struggling with inflation.
US residents face the highest prescription drug prices in the world, leaving many people to pay partly out of their own pockets, despite already exorbitant insurance premiums.
Biden highlighted Harris’s role, saying the “historic milestone” was only possible because the post-Covid Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Congress after his vice president cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
Harris added in her statement: “President Biden and I will never stop fighting for the health, wellbeing, and financial stability of the American people.”
