President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported generic drugs could raise some prices for patients, a key GOP lawmaker on health issues said this week. But he said that’s a potentially worthwhile trade-off to protect the nation’s drug supply.
“The national security might be something worth paying for,” Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said July 22 in an exclusive interview with KFF Health News.
The U.S., which has grappled with drug shortages in recent years, relies primarily on China to produce the active ingredients in many antibiotics, according to a study published last fall in JAMA Health Forum. Domestic facilities have closed or shifted to producing other drugs.
“Do we want China to have that sort of leverage for these drugs to be produced principally, maybe 99%, over there, and we don’t have access to them if tension rises between the two countries?” said Cassidy, who is a physician.
On July 21, Trump said in a social media post that he would give generic drug companies two years to move production back to the U.S., after which he would impose 100% tariffs on imported products, rising to 200% the following year. Generic drugs make up an estimated 90% of all prescriptions filled in the U.S.
Cassidy, who has served in Congress since 2009, lost his bid for reelection in May after Trump endorsed a Republican primary challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow.
Last month, more than 16 months after his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Cassidy said on CBS News’ Face the Nation that the secretary broke promises he made to the senator, including that he would not change the federal recommendations for childhood vaccines.
Asked whether he would summon Kennedy again to discuss those promises, Cassidy said he had asked for him to appear before his committee but had not heard back about whether he would do so. Kennedy appeared before the Senate HELP panel in April to discuss the Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request for HHS.
Cassidy told KFF Health News that when he agreed to vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination, he trusted that Kennedy would keep his word about not disparaging vaccines.
“If they agree to guardrails and disregard those guardrails, you can judge me,” Cassidy said. “You may decide my judgment wasn’t very good, but I don’t think you can say I acted in bad faith.”
Regardless, Cassidy added, Kennedy was going to exert influence in the administration, and he thought it would be better for Kennedy to be in an official post, where his work would be subject to oversight.
“I’m pretty sure that RFK was going to have the president’s ear whether he was in office or not,” he said.
While Kennedy’s efforts to roll back federal vaccine recommendations are being blocked by courts, this week researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that the number of measles cases confirmed in the U.S. so far in 2026 has exceeded the total for 2025 — making it the highest number of cases in 35 years.
Cassidy, a principal author of the 2020 No Surprises Act targeting surprise medical bills, also said he doesn’t think Congress needs to make modifications to the law in the wake of reports that doctors and other healthcare providers are winning huge payouts under the arbitration system the law created. The No Surprises Act was intended to shield patients from receiving big bills for receiving medical care they didn’t know was outside their health plan’s network.
An analysis by The Wall Street Journal this week found that providers were awarded nearly $15 billion in disputed claims in 2025, more than triple the 2024 figure of $4.08 billion.
“The initial step to make sure that people are getting their best deal is price transparency,” Cassidy said.
The HELP Committee on July 22 overwhelmingly approved advancing the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, a bipartisan bill that would further expand the requirements that hospitals, insurers, and other healthcare providers make prices public and available to patients and employers. A House committee advanced a similar bill this week, also with bipartisan support, but it remains unclear whether either measure will be approved by the full House and Senate.
The interview — in which Cassidy also discussed his Money and Value for Patients proposal — was part of the “How Would You Fix It?” series featuring Julie Rovner, KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health? podcast.
An abbreviated version of this interview aired July 23 in Episode 456 of What the Health? From KFF Health News: “A Shrinking Safety Net.”
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