Chart of the Day: The Trump Plan for Prescription Drugs

After griping for hours about President Trump’s upcoming speech on reducing prescription drug prices, you’d think I’d at least listen to the damn thing and then comment on it, wouldn’t you? I guess so. That would be the fair thing to do.

But here’s the thing: Sometimes I get tired of being sucked into long, dry analyses of Republican plans that we all know perfectly well are meaningless. Someone has to do it, and very often that someone is me. It’s my role in the vast politico-industrial complex, after all. But seriously, who cares? Trump himself barely understood what he was reading, and whatever it was, Congress is going to ignore it. Plus it’s Friday, and I’m tired. So fuck it.

Besides, there’s really no need for all that work. There are hundreds of analysts out there who know more than me about this stuff, and they render instant decisions on it via the stock market. So if all you want to know is whether Trump’s plan is good for consumers or good for pharmaceutical companies, just check out how pharmaceutical stocks did as Trump was delivering his speech. If stocks went down, that’s good news for consumers. If stocks went up, it’s good news for drug companies.

Can you guess which way pharmaceutical stocks went? Huh? Can you?

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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