WASHINGTON -- President Trump signed the into law on Wednesday, calling it a measure that "will help a lot of people."
"As I proudly sign this bill, thousands of terminally ill Americans will finally have the help, the hope, a fighting chance -- and I think it's going to be better than a chance -- that they'll be cured, they'll be helped and be able to be with their families for a long time, or maybe [just] a longer time," Trump said at the signing ceremony held at the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building here. "Now we're going to help a lot of people. It's an honor to be signing this."
The measure, which was passed by the Senate last August and by the House on May 23, 2018, would allow individuals with life-threatening illnesses to obtain experimental drugs prior to FDA approval. However, the law does not require drug companies to make their products available. Critics of Right to Try point out that the FDA already has an "expanded access" pathway -- which is sometimes called "compassionate use" -- and that 99% of patients' requests to receive experimental treatments for expanded access are usually approved within a few hours or days.
President Trump, surrounded by terminally ill patients and their families, said the bill signing was "a very important moment [on a] very important day ... I've been looking forward to this for a long time." He said he never understood why it was so hard to pass the bill.
The name Right to Try "is such a great name; some bills don't have a good name," he added. "From the first day I heard it [I thought] 'It's so perfect.' And a lot of the trying is going to be successful -- I really do believe it." The president said when he was figuring out which version of the bill to support, "I said, 'Which is the better bill for the people, not for the insurance companies, not for the pharmaceutical companies?' I really couldn't care less [about them]."
"For many years, patients, advocates, and lawmakers fought for this fundamental freedom," he continued. "Incredibly, they couldn't get it -- a lot of it was because of business, because of pharmaceuticals, because of insurance liability, so I said 'Take care of that stuff' and that's what we did."
Trump also hinted at some other healthcare news. "We will have another news conference in 3 weeks, 4 weeks ... We have two great plans coming out," including one from the Secretary of Labor related to association health plans, he said. Trump was referring to regulations that would allow members of associations to band together across state lines to purchase health insurance, an idea that has been criticized because it would allow the plans to be exempt from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage requirements.
The other type of plan Trump mentioned was so-called "short-term limited duration" policies, which also don't have to meet all of the ACA requirements. Currently these cheaper, less comprehensive plans are only available to consumers for periods of less than 3 months under the ACA, but a (HHS) and the Labor and Treasury departments would make the legal duration up to, but not including, 12 months.
He noted that getting these plans enacted was simpler now that Congress has repealed the ACA individual mandate that required people to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. "We could have gotten it done a little easier but somebody decided not to vote for it; it was one of those things," Trump said in an apparent reference to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who voted against the repeal measure and is now home in Arizona battling a brain tumor.
The Trump administration "is also working hard at getting the cost of medicine down," the president said. "I think people will see for the first time ever in this country a major drop in the cost of prescription drugs ... I think we're going to have some big news ... Some of the big drug companies are going to announce voluntary massive drops in prices."