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President Donald Trump on Monday signed a sweeping executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to electively lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. or face new limits down the road over what the government will pay. The order calls on the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to broker new price tags for drugs over the next month. If deals are not reached, Kennedy will be tasked with developing a new rule that ties the price the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries. We’re going to equalize, Trump said during a Monday morning press conference. We’re all going to pay the same. We’re going to pay what Europe pays. It’s unclear whatif anyimpact the Republican president’s executive order will have on millions of Americans who have private health insurance. The federal government has the most power to shape the price it pays for drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Trump promised newbut uncertainsavings on drug prices, just hours after the Republican-led House released its new plan to trim $880 billion from Medicaid. Taxpayers spend hundreds of billions of dollars on prescription drugs, injectables, transfusions, and other medications every year through Medicare, which covers nearly 70 million older Americans. Medicaid, which provides nearly-free health care for almost 80 million poor and disabled people in the U.S. also spends tens of billions of dollars each year for drugs. Top U.S. drugmakers say Trump’s order is bad for patients The nation’s pharmaceutical lobby, which represents the top U.S. drugmakers, immediately pushed back against Trump’s order, calling it a bad deal for American patients. Drugmakers have long argued that any threats to their profits could impact the research they do to develop new drugs. Importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal for American patients and workers,” Stephen J. Ubl, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said in a statement. “It would mean less treatments and cures and would jeopardize the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America.” Trump’s so-called most favored nation approach to Medicare drug pricing has been controversial since he first tried to implement it during his first term. He signed a similar executive order in the final weeks of his presidency, which called for the U.S. to only pay a lower price that other countries pay for some drugssuch as injectables or cancer drugs given through infusionsadministered in a doctor’s office. That narrow executive order faced hurdles, with a court order that blocked the rule from going into effect under President Joe Biden’s administration. The pharmaceutical industry argued that Trumps 2020 attempt would give foreign governments the upper hand in deciding the value of medicines in the U.S. Trump says other countries are to blame Trump repeatedly defended pharmaceutical companies, instead blaming other countries for the high price Americans pay for drugs, during a wide-ranging speech at the White House on Monday. The president was flanked by Kennedy, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya. Trump did, however, threaten the companies with federal investigations into their practices and opening up the U.S. drug market to bring in more imported medications from other countries. The pharmaceutical companies make most of their profits from America, Trump said. Thats not a good thing. Trump played up the announcement over the weekend, boasting in one post that his plan could save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.” But on Monday, the White House offered no specifics for how much money the administration anticipates it could save. The health department’s top leaders will be meeting with drug company executives over the next 30 days to offer new prices on drugs that are based off what other countries pay, Oz said on Monday. Americans are unlikely to see immediate savings Americans are unlikely to see relief on rising drug costs quickly because of the order, said Rachel Sachs, a health law expert at Washington University. It really does seem the plan is to ask manufacturers to voluntarily lower their prices to some point, which is not known, Sachs said. If they do not lower their prices to the desired point, HHS shall take other actions with a very long timeline, some of which could potentially, years in the future, lower drug prices. The health department has the most authority to change the prices of drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid because it can set regulations. Even still, the agency’s power to do so is limited. Congress just approved in 2022 a new law that allows Medicare to negotiate the price it pays for a handful of prescription drugs starting in 2026. Before the law, Medicare paid what the drug companies charged. Drug companies unsuccessfully sued over the implementation of the law. The price that millions of Americans covered by private insurance pay for drugs is even harder for the agency to manipulate. The U.S. routinely outspends other nations on drug prices, compared with other large and wealthy countries, a problem that has long drawn the ire of both major political parties. But a lasting fix has never cleared Congress. Trump came into his first term accusing pharmaceutical companies of getting away with murder and complaining that other countries whose governments set drug prices were taking advantage of Americans. Trump says he’ll do the right thing Ahead of the announcement, Trump puffed up his rhetoric toward the industry again on social media, writing that the Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the suckers of America, ALONE. Referring to drug companies powerful lobbying efforts, he said that campaign contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Reublican Party. We are going to do the right thing, he wrote. Several pharmaceutical companies gained ground in the stock market on Monday morning. Merck, a company that made $64.2 billion last year with the help of its cancer treatment Keytruda, jumped 3.9%. Pharma giant Pfizer, which notched $63.6 billion in revenue in 2024, rose 2.5%, while Gilead Sciences rose 5.8%. Amanda Seitz and Seung Min Kim, Associated Press Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Damian Troise in New York contributed to this report.
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Disneys 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland taught audiences that you can learn a lot of things from the flowers. But the movie never mentioned the full moon named after those springtime sensations. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, a celestial phenomenon called the flower moon occurs today, and despite being micro, it is still a sight to behold. Lets take a deeper look into what all these names mean, and when you can see this “full flower micromoon.” Why is the May full moon tonight called the ‘Flower Moon’? The Old Farmers Almanac shares popular names given to each months full moons. Many of these monikers are based in Native American tradition. May is most commonly referred to as the flower moon, thanks to the Algonquin people. The name comes from the fact that many flowers begin to bloom in May, thanks in part to all the April showers. Eighteenth-century American explorer Jonathan Carver used a similar name in his 1798 publication, Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America. He dubbed the orb month of flowers, after living among the Dakota people. American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau references this name in his writings as well. Other tribes monikers celebrated other spring seasonal delights. The Cree preferred “budding moon” and “leaf budding moon,” while the Oglala used “moon of the shedding ponies.” Similarly, the Dakota and Lakota people also utilized the name “planting moon.” The Flower Moon tonight is also a micromoon The flower moon is also the third and final micromoon of 2025. A micromoon occurs when the moon becomes full during apogee, which is a fancy NASA word describing the moon at its farthest point away from Earth. Mays full moon will be smaller and dimmer as a result, but it’s still an impressive satellite. (Just like humans, the orb cant always give 100%!) When is the best time to see the full Flower Moon tonight? While May’s moon reaches peak illumination today at 12:56 p.m. ET, it will appear full for a couple of nights. This gives you enough time to bask in its glory, and maybe even accept a proposal of marriage. Ancient folklore states that love is intensified during this time, because as the moon regulates the tides, it may also impact the water in human bodies. In a similar vein, if you need an excuse not to do laundry, clothes washed during this period are said not to last long. Looking up and ahead After you go for love (or the longevity of your clothes) with this flower micromoon, the rest of 2025 still has plenty in store. Coming attractions include three back-to-back supermoons beginning in October, to finish out the year strongly. But before we get there, next month’s “strawberry moon” celebrates the time when the sweet fruit is ripe and ready to pick. Stay tuned for more to come on these nighttime displays.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. In 2005, the median U.S. homeowner lived and owned their primary home for 6.5 years. In 2024, the median U.S. homeowner lived and owned their primary home for 11.8 years. Thats according to Redfins latest analysis. That means the typical U.S. home today has been owned by the same person for nearly twice as long as in 2005resulting in less turnover in the housing market. That affects the entire ecosystem. For some millennials and Gen Xers, it could mean staying longer in their starter homes as they struggle to find a move-up property in their desired location. And for first-time buyers, especially Gen Z, the lack of turnover means fewer entry-level homes coming up for sale. After climbing every year between 2005 and 2020, U.S. homeowner tenure has come down a bit due to the increase in home sales during the pandemic housing boom. However, given spiked mortgage rates and low existing home sales, tenure rates could start going higher again. “Moving forward, we expect homeowner tenure to stay flat or increase slightly for the foreseeable future,” wrote Redfin researchers. “Existing-home sales hit a 15-year low last year, with many homeowners locked in by low mortgage rates, and while sales should pick up a bit this year, itll be more of a trickle than a flood.” Why did U.S. homeowner tenure increase so much between 2005 and 2020? Redfin says, in part, its because so many baby boomers choose to “age in place.” “Older Americans are hanging onto their homes because theyre financially incentivized to do so. Most (54%) baby boomers who own homes own them free and clear, with no outstanding mortgage. For that group, the median monthly cost of owning a homewhich includes insurance and property taxes, among other thingsis just over $600 (similar to the monthly cost for other generations with no outstanding mortgage, but other generations are far less likely to own homes free and clear), wrote Redfin researchers. In addition to “aging in place,” the Redfin report also cites state-level tax policies that encourage homeowners not to move as part of the reason for increased homeowner tenures. Most notably, Proposition 13 in California limits property tax increases for homeowners, thus encouraging them not to sell. Theres also the fact that older Americans have higher homeownership rates, and over the past few decades, the composition of the U.S. population has shifted older as the giant baby boomer generation has aged and birth rates have declined. That has put upward pressure on homeowner tenure. What has this meant for homebuyers and the industry? The increase in average homeowner tenure over the two past decades has subdued turnover, limiting the purchasing opportunities for certain properties and holding back existing home sales.
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