President Trump on Thursday announced the launch of TrumpRx, a new prescription drug discount platform he described as “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time,” saying it would dramatically cut medication costs for Americans.
“This launch represents the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history by many, many times,” he said.
While the administration is promoting TrumpRx as a major step toward lowering drug costs, The Hill reports that health policy specialists and consumer advocates are questioning how broadly the program will help patients and whether the advertised savings are as substantial as claimed.
TrumpRx currently offers discount coupons for 43 prescription medications, advertising price reductions ranging from 33 percent to 93 percent off list prices. The drugs cover a range of conditions, including obesity, respiratory disorders, infertility, bladder issues, and menopause.
Some analysts quickly pointed out that even with the discounts, the prices shown on TrumpRx may still exceed what insured patients typically pay through their health plans.
“If you have insurance, your out-of-pocket costs are probably going to be less than the discounted list price that’s being advertised on TrumpRX,” Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Program on Medicare Policy at KFF, told The Hill.
“For people who are looking at this website and maybe they recognize a drug that they take, they really need to understand how their out-of-pocket cost under insurance would compare to the TrumpRx price.”
Cubanski added that TrumpRx could still provide meaningful savings for certain medications that are not consistently covered by insurance plans, including some weight loss treatments and in vitro fertilization drugs, potentially making the program attractive to a broader group of patients.
“It’s a valuable effort for some medications, for some people, and I think especially people who don’t have good coverage of some of these medications,” she said.
All of the drugs listed on TrumpRx are branded medications sold directly by pharmaceutical companies that have entered into “most favored nation” pricing agreements with the Trump administration.
Critics note, however, that many of these branded drugs have generic versions available at far lower prices through existing discount programs.
For example, Protonix, a branded acid-reducing medication produced by Pfizer, is advertised on TrumpRx at a 55 percent discount, reducing its price from $447.28 to $200.10 for a 30-day supply of 20 mg tablets.
By comparison, data from GoodRx shows that the generic version, pantoprazole, can be purchased for $10.47 for the same dosage and quantity using a standard coupon. Even without a coupon, the estimated cost is just under $80.
A similar pattern appears with Tikosyn, another Pfizer drug used to treat irregular heart rhythms. TrumpRx lists Tikosyn at a discounted price of $336 for 60 capsules at a 0.125 mg dosage. GoodRx shows the generic equivalent, dofetilide, available for $23.06 with a coupon, reflecting a 94 percent reduction from the listed price of $373.96.
Generic medications account for the vast majority of prescriptions in the United States. According to the Food and Drug Administration, 91 percent of prescriptions were filled with generic drugs in 2023.
Anthony Wright, executive director of FamiliesUSA, a nonpartisan consumer health advocacy organization, sharply criticized the initiative, calling TrumpRx a “trumped-up catalog of coupons.”
“This is not actually lowering drug prices. It steers consumers to the existing drug company programs for uninsured patients that have been around for a while,” Wright said. “This is pretty limited in terms of both who it effects, what drugs it offers and what the benefits are, especially compared to what already existed previously.”
Not everyone shared that assessment. Ashish Jha, who served as the Biden administration’s White House COVID-19 response coordinator, described TrumpRx as a positive development, particularly for people without insurance.
He said the platform was a “good thing” that “is going to be really, really helpful for people who don’t have health insurance” in comments to The Hill’s sister network, NewsNation.
The TrumpRx website specifies that individuals enrolled in government health programs, including Medicaid, are not eligible to use the discount coupons.
That restriction is likely tied to federal anti-kickback laws, which prohibit offering or receiving anything of value in connection with items reimbursed by government health programs such as Medicaid.
The Hill contacted the Trump administration seeking clarification on whether individuals with private health insurance are eligible to use TrumpRx coupons.
Even if privately insured patients are permitted to participate, the overall reach of the program may remain limited, according to Yunan Ji, an assistant professor of strategy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
“It really only applies to cash-pay patients. So, just considering the scale is cash-pay patients we’re thinking about, you know, a percent of the uninsured, plus some of the people who may be underinsured because their insurance coverage may be limited, but the scope is quite limited at the moment,” she said.
About 8 percent of Americans currently lack health insurance, and with only 43 drugs included so far, TrumpRx is positioned to assist only a small portion of that population. Administration officials have said additional medications will be added in the coming weeks.
Ji also raised concerns about the broader implications of the administration’s “most favored nation” pricing policy.
“The thing about MFN in general — so this is interesting, because MFN is something I teach my MBA students — is that actually, in the long run, it actually puts upward pricing pressure,” she said.
Under Trump’s signature drug pricing approach, pharmaceutical companies are required to sell drugs in the United States at prices no higher than those charged in other countries.
Ji explained that when drugmakers anticipate MFN requirements, they may respond by launching new medications at higher initial prices or delaying introductions in countries with strict pricing controls.
President Trump acknowledged that the policy could have consequences abroad when he announced TrumpRx.
“Drug prices in other nations will go up by doing this, they had to agree,” he said. “In many cases, the drug costs will go up by double and even triple for them, but they’re going way down for the United States.”
{Matzav.com}
