President Donald Trump said Friday that he plans to call a meeting with health insurance companies to pressure them to voluntarily lower their prices.
“I’ll bet you, if I called a meeting of the insurance companies, the companies that are involved with health care costs, I would be willing to bet, I think that they would reduce their prices,” he said during a drug pricing event at the White House. “I’m going to see if they get their price down.”
Trump said he wants to hold the discussions within the next two weeks, speculating that he could strike a deal with insurers in the same way that his administration has negotiated agreements with drug companies to lower the cost of certain medicines.
In a statement later Friday, health insurer trade group AHIP indicated its members were open to a meeting.
“Health plans are doing everything in their power to shield Americans from the high and rising costs of medical care, and we welcome any opportunity to discuss common-sense solutions to lower costs for everyone,” AHIP CEO Mike Tuffin said.
The announcement comes as the White House and congressional Republicans have struggled to coalesce behind a plan for averting a looming spike in Affordable Care Act premiums spurred by the expiration of key enhanced subsidies at the end of the month.
Congress adjourned for the year earlier this week without reaching a health care agreement. Trump, meanwhile, has pushed for directing more federal aid to individual patients, but has yet to offer any specific plan for accomplishing that.
The coming premium hikes have worried some Trump advisers and Republican lawmakers, who are fearful of the political fallout of rising health care prices at a time when voters are already focused on cost-of-living concerns.
This post has been updated with additional details.
