• Biden is to sign the directive during a trip to California and Oregon.
• The order mandates the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to detail within 90 days how it will reduce medication costs.
• Inflation is among voters top concerns ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Friday directing government authorities to reduce prescription drug costs during a pre-election trip to support Democrats’ health plans.

According to a White House official who declined to be identified in advance of the president’s action, the order mandates the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to detail within 90 days how it will adopt new models of care and payment to reduce medication costs.

Biden is to sign the directive during a trip to California and Oregon on Friday and Saturday, as he frames his party as a champion of lower healthcare prices ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when inflation is among voters’ top concerns.

Consumer prices in the United States rose 8.2% in the year to September, after soaring above 9% in the summer and expanding at their quickest rate since 1981, according to data released on Thursday. Healthcare costs, along with food and housing, were partly to blame in the most recent month.

“Americans are squeezed by the cost of living – that’s been true for years and is a key reason the president ran,” the White House said in a fact sheet to be released on Friday that blames pharmaceutical companies for raising prices. “Health care costs in particular are driving inflation.”

Through an Innovation Center established by the 2010 healthcare reform law known as Obamacare and situated at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, HHS was granted the authority to promote new approaches to cutting costs and expanding service.

In August, Biden signed the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which allows the federal government to negotiate prescription medication prices and set rates for the government’s Medicare health-care programme.

Medicare programmes, which serve 65 million Americans, have been frequently chastised for their high cost to taxpayers.

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